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First Grade Fact Fluency

December 07, 2019

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First grade has recently started devoting intervention time to math facts. Each student is working on the fact set they need to master, which means many of them are on different sets. We group math facts by number, like +1, +2, etc. At the end of the year, each set mastered will earn them a part of a banana split as a reward for their hard work. Time is the tricky part of math facts. To be truly fluent, meaning answering the problems accurately and quickly without having to use number lines, charts or fingers, we time the students for 1 minute on 20 problems. During intervention, we practice finding the correct answer and different strategies to do that. Sometimes we use flashcards too. We also play games with dice and on computers to make it fun and engaging. Then it just takes practice! Students are truly learning that the more they practice they do remember the correct answer and they see that they are going faster and passing to the next set. That's the best part! We encourage doing fact flashcards at home too. Or finding fun online ways to practice like IXL or SplashMath. Really knowing our math facts will make math easier for years to come!