Rocketing to Math Fact Fluency

I want to take a moment to talk about Rocket Math.  Rocket Math is a program that is designed to help students reach automatic fluency.  Education went away from timed math programs for a while because it isn't a strength for everyone.  We have found as we went back to this program that students who have automatic recall of math facts are more successful in higher math.  When you get into higher math the more fact fluency you have, the less room there is for errors in multi-step problems.

The program is individualized and custom fit to each student.  Each student has a number writing speed that is determined by copying numbers on a timed test.  Each student has their own goal that is fit to their ability.  The test is then designed to stretch students into knowing their facts so well that they immediately see the answer.  There is a lot of value to having these facts locked into your mind.

Each level of the program only adds two math facts and their reverse facts (3+1 and 1+3.)  Students who pass a level only have to add these 4 facts to their knowledge to pass the next level.  It is designed to push kids so if they get stuck even for a couple seconds it can cause them to miss their goal.  You will see that as most students get the hang of it, their scores will go up considerably.  You may want to get a set or make a set of flash cards and only practice the facts on their page.

I receive requests each year for extra copies to be sent home to practice.  I just don't have those kind of copies as much as I would love to do that.  We figured it out and if every teacher follows this program daily like we are supposed to, it would be over 114,000 copies for the year.  I would suggest flash cards or the math games at www.arcademics.com.  

I would love to have every student pass addition and multiplication this year, but I understand that even some great math students struggle with timed tests.  This is not marked on their report card, but I encourage that you practice daily because in my experience students with good math fact fluency have a high correlation with students who do well on our other math assessments.

In other math news, we will be doing our most exciting math assessment tomorrow.  We will be taking the STAR math assessment which is a sliding scale math assessment.  I can't wait to see where the kids are before we dive into the assessment.  This assessment sends me amazing data to help inform my instruction and make me a better teacher.  Make sure students have a chance to get a good night of sleep and a good lunch tomorrow.

Kids are doing great! I am happy with where we are at right now.