The Great Fact Debate

Over the years, there has been much debate about memorization of basic facts among teachers and parents. To sum it up, it pretty much goes like this:

(Old School Teachers) Break out the flash cards! Set the timer! Students MUST have the basics memorized!

(Do these pictures make anyone else's heart start racing as they recall that jittery nervous feeling before, during, and after such timed tests?!)

(New School Teachers) Have you seen the reading comprehension needed to solve math problems these days?! We don't have time for memorizing basic facts in class! or As long as the student knows a strategy, s/he can use that to figure it out.

(Or are you nervous now???) 

 

I can honestly say I've been both of these teachers at various points in my career. I agree with the Old School teachers that the basic facts need to become automatic at some point. It is developmentally appropriate (and a Florida second grade math standard) for students to know the basic facts (sums to 20) automatically. However, traditional flash cards are too abstract for most students at this age, who are still developing number sense. Coming up as a teacher in the New School, I can totally relate to this perspective as well. The majority of math "situations" (word problems as we called them in the Old School days) are no longer straight computation (numbers only), but require moderate to high levels of thinking (reading comprehension) in addition to performing the actual math skill assessed!

So, what is a teacher to do? Each day this week, your student should be bringing home a red booklet s/he made of Doubles and Near Doubles. We used a visual strategy (ten grids) to help the students "picture" or "see" the combinations. In class, we practiced how to use the booklets to become fluent Doubles and Near Doubles combinations/fact families. Your student needs to practice the fact families shown on the pages of the booklet for 10 minutes each night. This will help students save precious mental energy for thinking about the math situation s/he is solving instead of using it to figure out basic facts, which are often part of the process. To ensure that the booklet does not get damaged or lost, please keep it in the front pocket of the planner/have the student return it to school each day.

Next week, your student will receive a Math Facts Practice Log to keep track of minutes spent practicing basic facts. Please sign it each night to verify your student is practicing. Our first timed test (with a New School twist: fact families as opposed to isolated facts, flexible presentation to introduce variables and reinforce the relationship between addition and subtraction) will be next Friday (October 12). Your student will receive a practice sheet on Monday that is similar to the test. We will test on Doubles and Near Doubles again the following Friday (October 19), and I will include the better of the two scores in your student's quarterly math grade.