Curriculum Corner Math Fact Fluency

What is math fact fluency?

Math fact fluency is the ability to recall the answers to basic math facts automatically and without hesitation. Both conceptual understanding and the ability to solve facts accurately under un-timed conditions are prerequisites for automatic recall of facts. When these prerequisites have been achieved, it is imperative that students practice the facts so that they can be answered automatically (i.e., retrieval of the answer is both quick and accurate). Through repeated exposures with a fact, the brain establishes a memory relationship with the fact, leading to automatic retrieval. Lessons 1 28 of Eureka Module 4: Number Pairs, Addition and Subtraction to 10 provide the students with a conceptual understanding of the processes of addition and subtraction and provide repeated opportunities to solve addition and subtraction problems in un-timed conditions. After working through these lessons, students are ready to begin working on building addition and subtraction fact fluency. Through the remainder of Eureka Module 4 the students have daily practice with addition and subtraction fact fluency.

Why is math fact fluency important?

Educators and cognitive scientists agree that the ability to recall basic math facts fluently is necessary for students to attain higher-order math skills. Cognitive psychologists have discovered that humans have fixed limits on the attention and memory that can be used to solve problems. One way around these limits is to have certain components of a task become so routine and over-learned that they become automatic. The implication for mathematics is that some of the sub-processes, particularly basic facts, need to be developed to the point that they are done automatically. If this fluent retrieval does not develop then the development of higher-order mathematics skills such as multiple-digit addition and subtraction, long division, and fractions may be severely impaired. Without the ability to retrieve facts directly or automatically, students are likely to experience cognitive overload as they attempt to perform complex tasks. The added processing demands resulting from inefficient methods such as counting (vs. direct retrieval) often lead to errors. Research published by The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) states that students who cannot retrieve basic facts easily get lost and often cannot follow the logic of an explanation given by the teacher or a peer when the problems are embedded within more complex mathematic operations, such as simple algebra or long division. Indeed, studies have found that lack of math fact retrieval can impede participation in math class discussions, successful mathematics problem-solving, and even the development of everyday life skills. And rapid math-fact retrieval has been shown to be a strong predictor of performance on mathematics achievement tests. Research in cognitive science, using functional magnetic resonance imaging has revealed the actual shift in brain activation patterns as untrained math facts are learned. Instruction and practice cause math fact processing to move from a quantitative area of the brain to one related to automatic retrieval. This shift aids the solving of complex computations that require the selection of an appropriate resolution algorithm, retrieval of intermediate results, storage and updating in working memory by substituting some of the intermediate steps with automatic retrieval. The research cited above highlights the importance of math fact fluency. The authors of the Common Core State Standards acknowledged the importance of building fact fluency in students as young as Kindergarten. The Kindergarten Math standards state that students should fluently add and subtract within 5.

At Home Practice
As stated above, through the lessons in Eureka Module 4 the students will have daily practice with addition and subtraction fact fluency. The Eureka module provides 5 different fact fluency practice sets, sets A E designed

to be progressively more challenging. Each practice set contains 16 addition and/or subtraction problems. Students will be given 96 seconds to complete the 16 problems in the set (for an average of 6 seconds/problem). Each child began with practice set A this week. When your child accurately completes all 16 questions in a practice set in the allotted 96 seconds then he/she will proceed to the next practice set. When all five practice sets have been mastered, your child will move onto the four core fluency sprint problem sets, sets A D . In order to provide additional practice on addition and subtraction fact fluency, you can create an account for your child on the website xtramath.com. This website will provide progressively more challenging problems for your child as his/her fact recall skill increases.