A Note To Students About Summer Prep For All Incoming 5th and 6th Graders...
All students should be practicing their addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts. You should be fluent in all facts before the start of school.
Practicing your math skills will be on the “honor system.” My desire and strong encouragement to all of my students is to spend a little time each day reviewing and practicing to retain your math skills and start next year off strong.
Whether you decide to play on a website, summer workbooks, or flash cards, you will be tested during that first week of school on addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts 1 – 10. Set yourself up for a FUN, successful, and no-stress year by finally conquering your math facts!
Have a safe and happy summer.
I am so looking forward to teaching you math next year!
~Mrs. Manley
A Note To Parents About Summer Prep For All Incoming 5th and 6th Graders...
Do We Put Too Much Emphasis on Memorizing Math Facts?
Fact Fluency vs Memorization.
When explaining the difference between memorization and fact fluency to students, I often describe memory’s limitations. Memory is all or nothing. If you have something memorized, you simply know the math fact or poem or state capital you set out to memorize. On the other hand, students often feel stuck when they do not have a fact memorized. In this case they need to have a toolbox of strategies to get at the fact they can’t remember.
Fact fluency, like language fluency, means students can flexibly apply what they already know. They find facts they do not recall by using the facts they already have memorized. They double their 2s facts to get their 4s facts. And they easily add one group more to get the fact they need. Not only do they see how multiplication facts are related to one another, but they also efficiently use the relationships between multiplication, addition, subtraction, and division.
Three Ways to Increase Fact Fluency This Summer:
1. Put less emphasis on time and speed.
I’ve heard arguments made that timed tests are the only way to build automaticity with facts because they keep students using from less-efficient strategies such as skip-counting. When we want to encourage efficient strategies, timed tests aren’t as effective as direct instruction in developing these skills. Timed tests offer a good snapshot of how well students have memorized their facts, but are not a powerful teaching tool.
2. Prompt students to make connections between facts.
One deceptively simple strategy to improve fact fluency is to start asking students how they can use one fact they know to find another they may not. Too often, students reflexively look to teachers and parents to give them the answer to 7 times 8 without first trying to get it on their own. The focus on rote memorization has left our students thinking that math facts are discrete pieces of information that aren’t related to one another. Foster problem-solving skills by prompting them to first search for the product for themselves.
3. Explicitly teach strategies.
We can’t assume students know how multiplication facts are related. Take time to explain strategies for using an easier fact to find a trickier one. For example, students can use the product of 8x10 to find the product of 8x9 by subtracting one group of 8. Other strategies include doubling doubles to find 4s facts or doubling 4s facts to find 8s facts. Finally, teach students to apply the concept of partial products to their multiplication facts. Repeatedly show them how to combine two or more products to find an unknown answer. For example, have students use the products of 3x5 and 5x5 to find the product of 8x5.
So what’s the big deal with math facts? Why in today’s day and age - with calculators and computers - do kids really need to learn their basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division? Isn’t this just ‘old school’?
The fifth and sixth graders at Q DEFINITELY will need to have math fact fluency entering into school this fall. These facts form the building blocks for higher-level math concepts. Math concepts will be easier and a student will be better equipped to solve problems with less confusion. If a student has to spend a lot of time doing basic math facts while learning math, the student will miss instruction and will be confused with the processes and get lost in their math instruction. In 5th and 6th grade we have longer and more complicated computations to complete and if a student does not have math fact fluency, he/she will spend a disproportionate amount of time figuring out the smaller calculations and risk not completing the problem. This not only affects their performance in math class that day, but will also create math anxiety because they will fall behind and will not be able to keep up. There are no calculators allowed for 5th grade and for the majority of 6th grade.
Thank you in advance for your help getting your child ready for next year! Mrs. Manley
All students should be practicing their addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts. You should be fluent in all facts before the start of school.
Practicing your math skills will be on the “honor system.” My desire and strong encouragement to all of my students is to spend a little time each day reviewing and practicing to retain your math skills and start next year off strong.
Whether you decide to play on a website, summer workbooks, or flash cards, you will be tested during that first week of school on addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts 1 – 10. Set yourself up for a FUN, successful, and no-stress year by finally conquering your math facts!
Have a safe and happy summer.
I am so looking forward to teaching you math next year!
~Mrs. Manley
A Note To Parents About Summer Prep For All Incoming 5th and 6th Graders...
Do We Put Too Much Emphasis on Memorizing Math Facts?
Fact Fluency vs Memorization.
When explaining the difference between memorization and fact fluency to students, I often describe memory’s limitations. Memory is all or nothing. If you have something memorized, you simply know the math fact or poem or state capital you set out to memorize. On the other hand, students often feel stuck when they do not have a fact memorized. In this case they need to have a toolbox of strategies to get at the fact they can’t remember.
Fact fluency, like language fluency, means students can flexibly apply what they already know. They find facts they do not recall by using the facts they already have memorized. They double their 2s facts to get their 4s facts. And they easily add one group more to get the fact they need. Not only do they see how multiplication facts are related to one another, but they also efficiently use the relationships between multiplication, addition, subtraction, and division.
Three Ways to Increase Fact Fluency This Summer:
1. Put less emphasis on time and speed.
I’ve heard arguments made that timed tests are the only way to build automaticity with facts because they keep students using from less-efficient strategies such as skip-counting. When we want to encourage efficient strategies, timed tests aren’t as effective as direct instruction in developing these skills. Timed tests offer a good snapshot of how well students have memorized their facts, but are not a powerful teaching tool.
2. Prompt students to make connections between facts.
One deceptively simple strategy to improve fact fluency is to start asking students how they can use one fact they know to find another they may not. Too often, students reflexively look to teachers and parents to give them the answer to 7 times 8 without first trying to get it on their own. The focus on rote memorization has left our students thinking that math facts are discrete pieces of information that aren’t related to one another. Foster problem-solving skills by prompting them to first search for the product for themselves.
3. Explicitly teach strategies.
We can’t assume students know how multiplication facts are related. Take time to explain strategies for using an easier fact to find a trickier one. For example, students can use the product of 8x10 to find the product of 8x9 by subtracting one group of 8. Other strategies include doubling doubles to find 4s facts or doubling 4s facts to find 8s facts. Finally, teach students to apply the concept of partial products to their multiplication facts. Repeatedly show them how to combine two or more products to find an unknown answer. For example, have students use the products of 3x5 and 5x5 to find the product of 8x5.
So what’s the big deal with math facts? Why in today’s day and age - with calculators and computers - do kids really need to learn their basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division? Isn’t this just ‘old school’?
The fifth and sixth graders at Q DEFINITELY will need to have math fact fluency entering into school this fall. These facts form the building blocks for higher-level math concepts. Math concepts will be easier and a student will be better equipped to solve problems with less confusion. If a student has to spend a lot of time doing basic math facts while learning math, the student will miss instruction and will be confused with the processes and get lost in their math instruction. In 5th and 6th grade we have longer and more complicated computations to complete and if a student does not have math fact fluency, he/she will spend a disproportionate amount of time figuring out the smaller calculations and risk not completing the problem. This not only affects their performance in math class that day, but will also create math anxiety because they will fall behind and will not be able to keep up. There are no calculators allowed for 5th grade and for the majority of 6th grade.
Thank you in advance for your help getting your child ready for next year! Mrs. Manley