Number Talks Versus Number Strings

Fact Fluency | 0 comments

Number Talks have become quite popular in the last few years, but what most of you call Number Talks, I call Number Strings. Today, I’d like to analyze Number Talks versus Number Strings in our quest to build our math minds so we can build the math minds of our...

Fact Fluency Assessment

Fact Fluency | 27 comments

Fact fluency assessment is so much more than how many answers kids can complete in a minute. Yes, It includes being fast, but it also includes being accurate, getting it correct, and being flexible. Yet we usually only use fact fluency assessment to see how fast and...

What Is Fluency & My Thoughts On TouchMath

Fact Fluency | 3 comments

Recently, I received an email from a follower asking me about my thoughts on TouchMath®. I hope you’ll stick around while I go off on a little rant about why I hate TouchMath® as I hope to build your math mind as we are on our quest to build the math minds of...

Why the “Make 10” Strategy is WAY better than “Doubles” Strategy for Fact Fluency

Fact Fluency, Number Sense | 4 comments

When helping kids develop Fact Fluency I believe in focusing on 4 Types of Facts and then how those facts are related to all the other facts. You may have seen the chart below in previous posts of mine, but this chart shows those 4 Types of Facts: Doubles (orange),...

Fact Fluency Part 2: Build Number Sense to Build Fact Fluency

Building Number Sense, Fact Fluency | 3 comments

Have you ever seen a 5th-grade student count on their fingers to add 7 + 8?  Or a 6th grader doing repeated addition on their paper to solve 9 x 7?  If you haven’t, I can guarantee you’ve heard the stories from the upper grades teachers during staff meetings as they...

Quick Differentiated Math Fact Assessment

Fact Fluency | 0 comments

Right now we are in the midst of the state assessments, yet as I was helping my Kindergarten son get checked into his classroom I was reminded that the assessments teachers do to inform instruction can be quick and easily differentiated.  His teacher decided to put a...