Guided Math Fact Practice is our focus for math class makeover: Step 1.
Improving student’s knowledge of math facts is the single most important thing we need to focus on daily. Guided Math Fact Practice will change your math class by improving needed basic math skills and student self confidence. Below is a video that talks about this and then the blog contains links to Rocket Math by Dr. Don Crawford that I use daily in Guided Math Stations. I even show pictures of student’s folders to help explain how to follow step 1 to a math class makeover!
Rocket Math website has online or paper math fact practice for your classroom. I have used this system for over 15 years with 100% success, in 2nd semester Kindergarten thru fifth grade. Dr. Don Crawford offers an Apple App version or downloadable papers to use. I love the recording system each student uses with the paper version. My students had success no matter the grade level I taught. Check this site out for helping each student master math facts.
https://www.rocketmath.com/worksheet-program-subscription-levels-comparison/
Here is the folder I use for daily guided math fact practice. It is from rocketmath.com This folder shows the Rocket chart for addition. I put subtraction on a blue folder so I visually can see which student has progressed above and beyond.
This number is the amount of math facts this individual student must complete and get correct to move onto the next set. The Mastering Math Facts program from Dr. Don Crawford includes the preassessment to give your whole class and the chart that correlates with their “number”, according to their handwriting skills, not math fact knowledge.
As you can see, this student’s number increased. It was because they actually answered 16 correctly, so that is their new goal. It can keep increasing up to 40, the number of total facts per set.
The date is written in each square to record the date that set was attempted. Notice each student only gets six tries to pass. If they don’t pass, then we move them back to sets to start again. They got stuck. I tell them that it was too many facts for their brain at once. Dr. Don Crawford in his program details the many reasons they may have gotten stuck.
Here I wrote the next day’s date on the same set for this student who could be 2nd semester Kindergartener or First Grader. They did not pass set D the first try. They just practice it again the next day. For second graders on up, the student can write the date in the square daily.
As the student passes each set of math facts, they color in the letter on the rocket. It shows their accomplishment and boy does it improve their confidence!
Once done with all the sets, they can move onto the next math fact computation like subtraction or multiplication or division.
To finish this blog post, step 1 of math class makeover series is math fact practice daily. My students partner up and practice with a partner from their math group. If there is an odd number, one student practices by him/herself with the answer key. OR use Dr. Don’s online app called Rocket Math and your students can practice online. The online version determines if the students pass or not so you don’t have to check the papers daily. (Dr. Don tells us to only check the sets of the students who answered as many as their daily number. The other students already didn’t pass and just repeat that set the next day.)
Thank you, Dr. Don Crawford of Rocket Math, for developing such a great tool to use in Guided Math Fact Station.