How to use Rocket Math

How long should I allocate for Rocket Math daily?

Posted on by Dr. Don

Jessica asks:

As I am planning my daily schedule I am looking for how long I should set aside for Rocket Math each day.  What do you suggest?

Dr. Don answers: 

If you allocate 15 minutes a day for Rocket Math that will be enough.  You might have trouble meeting finishing that quickly in the beginning before the routine is established.  But once the routine is set there is no need to take more time than that–each partner of the pair is practicing for 2 to 3 minutes and the test takes only one minute.  Don’t try to have everyone correct their partners papers as that will take too long.  Making sure that students practice every day with their partner is critical to success, so anything that makes you feel “we don’t have time for Rocket Math today” is harmful to student learning.

The other key is to be sure to teach students how to practice with each other.  If you can train your students to correct hesitations you will accomplish a lot with your Rocket Math practicing time.  Please take a look at my video on “How to teach students how to practice.”   Take the time allocated to Rocket Math for the first several days of school and follow this teaching procedure.  It will pay off for you all year long in improved learning during Rocket Math time.

Without the directions you may get lost!

Posted on by Dr. Don

What happens when teachers don’t have a copy of the Rocket Math Teacher Directions?  Bad things!  

When teachers don’t have the written directions to Rocket Math, the essence of the program usually gets lost.  Procedures get modified and modified over the years until they are not even close to what should be occurring. Sometimes we have found schools that are not even providing daily oral practice.  Other schools don’t give the answer keys to the peer tutors.  Other schools don’t give the writing speed test and make up impossible-to-reach goals for students.  We often see teachers implementing the “Rocket Math” program incorrectly and wondering why it doesn’t work.  We ask them if they have read the teacher directions, and they say they didn’t know there were any.  When teachers have never seen the directions, is it any wonder they don’t know what they are supposed to be doing?  Hear-say directions handed down over the years from one teacher to another just don’t convey all the important details.  Teachers need the directions!

This is why I’d like you to have my complete directions for free. Even if you purchased Rocket Math ten years ago and haven’t gotten the updated versions since then, you can have these directions for free.  I have them in three places.  I have the directions broken out into FAQs on their own web page here.  That’s easy for quick reference.

The second place I have the Teacher Directions is as a downloadable booklet you can print out and distribute.  The Rocket Math Teacher Directions for the worksheet program booklet is here.   Please print this out and give to your teachers, especially in schools that began implementing several years back.  Read them and have a discussion at a professional development time.  You will be astounded at how much your implementation differs.

The third place I have the Teacher Directions is in the “filing cabinet on the web” for those of you who have the subscription. In the “Forms and Information” drawer we have the booklet and the FAQs which can be opened and printed out.

In school-wide implementations of Rocket Math, principals or math coaches need to take a leadership role.  The Administrator and Coach Handbook gives you forms with what to “look-for” in a Rocket Math implementation.  If you use that to observe Rocket Math in your classrooms you’ll quickly see whether or not things are going the way they should.   If you have a subscription to Rocket Math you’ll find all of the chapters of the Administrator and Coach Handbook in the “Forms and Information” drawer of our filing cabinet on the web.

Please take the time to see that you or your teachers are implementing Rocket Math according to the directions.  Trust me, it works SO MUCH BETTER if you do.  I wouldn’t steer you wrong!

 

Rush help to those who need it with an aimline

Posted on by Dr. Don

The sooner you provide extra help the easier it will be to catch them up.  

How can you know when students need help to meet expectations?  Use the graph above, which is available from the Educator’s Resources page or here: One Semester Aimline.  It is also available in the basic subscription site, Forms and Information Drawer as an optional form. It is an “aimline” for finishing an operation (Sets A-Z) in one semester.  Schools that don’t start Rocket Math in first grade need students to finish addition in the first semester of 2nd grade and subtraction in the second semester.  This means that students who get stuck on a level for even a week need to be helped.

If you indicate on this graph the week in which the student finishes each set in Rocket Math you can tell if the student is making enough progress, or if he/she needs to be getting extra practice sessions each day. If the student is working on a set above the line of gray boxes or on the line then progress is adequate–they are on track to finish the operation by the end of 18 weeks of the semester.  But if the student is working on a set that is below the line that means he/she needs intervention.

In the example above the student whose progress is shown in red is above the aimline.  That student has been passing at a rate that means he or she will finish the operation by completing Level Z by the end of the semester.  That student does not need any extra intervention.  In the example above the student in blue is falling behind.  By the fourth week that student has only passed Level C and so he needs to have extra help.

The first step would be to ensure this student has a good partner and is practicing the right way.  Sometimes students don’t stay on task or do not listen and correct their partner.  If hesitations are allowed (while the student figures out the answer) and not corrected the student will not improve.  Fix the practice in class first and see if the rate of passing improves and the student starts to get up to the aimline.

The second step is to include this student in a group of students who get a second practice session each day.  They would work in pairs and do another Rocket Math session each day.  Whether or not they take tests is unimportant.  What is important is that they do the oral practice with a partner who corrects their hesitations as well as their errors.  This could be done by a Title One teacher or assistant or a special education teacher or assistant.  It should only take ten minutes.

Another step is to involve parents if that’s possible.  Another practice session (or two) at home each evening would make a big difference.  Parents will need to know how to correct hesitations, but there’s a parent letter in the Forms and Information drawer for that.  Also note that siblings can do this practice as well, as long as they have an answer key.

You will be pleasantly surprised at how an extra few minutes a day of good quality practice can help students progress much faster at Rocket Math.  The sooner you intervene, the easier it will be for the student to catch up.

NOTE: There is an aimline for finishing one operation in a year.  It is also in the Forms and Information drawer and on the Educator’s Resources page of our website.  If you follow recommendations and do addition in first grade, subtraction in second, and multiplication in third you can use that aimline.  It won’t require intervening on so many students.

 

 

How should students practice math facts?

Posted on by Dr. Don

Students should practice with a checker holding an answer key. 

  • One student has a copy of the PRACTICE answer key and functions as the checker while the practicing student has the problems without answers. The practicing student reads the problems aloud and says the answers aloud. It is critical for students to say the problems aloud before saying the answer so the whole thing, problem and answer, are memorized together. We want students to have said the whole problem and answer together so often that when they say the problem to themselves the answer pops into mind, unbidden. (Unbidden? Yes, unbidden. I just kinda like that word and since I am writing this, I get to use it.)
  • A master PRACTICE answer key is provided—be sure to copy it on a distinctive color of paper (yellow in the picture) to assist in classroom monitoring. The distinctive color is important for teacher monitoring. If you are ready to begin testing and you see yellow paper on a desk, you know someone has answers in front of him/her. When you make these distinctively colored (there, I said it again) copies, be sure to copy all of the answer sheets needed for a given operation and staple them into a booklet format…one for each student who is working in that operation. For some reason (I actually know the reason) teachers always want to find a way to put the answer keys permanently into the students’ folders. DON’T. Students need to be able to hold these in their hot little hands, outside of their folders. Then answer keys will be the same regardless of the set of facts on which a student is working. So students working on multiplication will have the answers to ALL the practice sets for multiplication. This allows students from different levels to work together without having to hunt up different answer keys.
  • The checker watches the PRACTICE answer key and listens for hesitations or mistakes. If the practicing student hesitates even slightly before saying the answer, the checker should immediately do the correction procedure, explained below. (Let’s stop here. This is critical. Critical, I tell ya. This correcting hesitations thing is sooooo important. I mean really important. You can probably guess why. We need students to be able to say the answer to these problems without missing a beat — not even half a beat. So students must be taught that there is no hesitation allowed. Really.) Of course, if the practicing student makes a mistake, the checker should also do the correction procedure.
  • The correction procedure has three steps:
    1. The checker interrupts and immediately gives the correct answer.
    2. The checker asks the practicing student to repeat the fact and the correct answer at least once and maybe twice or three times. (I recommend three times in a row.)
    3. The checker has the practicing student backup three problems and begin again from there. If there is still any hesitation or an error, the correction procedure is repeated. Here are two scenarios:

Scenario One
Student A: “Five times four is eighteen.”
Checker: “Five time fours is twenty. You say it.”
Student A: “Five times four is twenty. Five times four is twenty. Five times four is twenty.”
Checker: “Yes! Back up three problems.”
Student A: (Goes back three problems and continues on their merry way.)

Scenario Two
Student A: “Five times four is … uhh…twenty.”
Checker “Five times four is twenty. You say it.”
Student A: “Five times four is twenty. Five times four is twenty. Five times four is twenty.”
Checker: “Yes! Back up three problems.”
Student A: (Goes back three problems and continues on their merry [there is a lot of merriment
in this program] way.)

  • This correction procedure is the key to two important aspects of practice. One, it ensures that students are reminded of the correct answers so they can retrieve them from memory rather than having to figure them out. (We know they can do that, but they will never develop fluency if they continue to have to “figure out” facts.) Two, this correction procedure focuses extra practice on any facts that are still weak.
  • Please Note: If a hesitation or error is made on one of the first three problems on the sheet, the checker should still have the student back up three problems. This should not be a problem because the practice problems go in a never-ending circle around the outside of the sheet. Aha…the purpose for the circle reveals itself!
  • Each student practices a minimum of two minutes. The teacher is timing this practice with a stopwatch…no, for real, time it! After a couple of weeks of good “on-task” behavior you can “reluctantly” allow more time, say two and a half minutes. Later, if students stay on task you can allow them up to about three minutes each. Make ‘em beg! If you play your cards right (be dramatic), you can get your students to beg you for more time to practice their math facts. I kid you not. I’ve seen it all over the country…really!
  • After the first student practices, students switch roles and the second student practices for the same amount of time. It is more important to keep to a set amount of time than for students to all finish once around. It is not necessary for students to be on the same set or even on the same operation, as long as answer keys are provided for all checkers. If students have the answer packet that goes with the operation they are practicing and their partner is on a different operation, they simply hand their answer packet to their partner to use for checking. I know what you are thinking. Yes, I realize that “simply handing” something between students is often fraught with danger. I was a teacher too. All of the parts of the practice procedure will need to be practiced with close teacher monitoring several (hundreds of) times prior to beginning the program. Not really “hundreds,” but if you want this to go smoothly, as with anything in your classroom, you will need to TEACH and PRACTICE the procedural component of this program to near mastery. Keep reading. I will tell you HOW to do this practice. (This is VERY directive.)
  • The practicing student should say both the problem and the answer every time. This is important because we all remember in verbal chains.
  • Saying the facts in a consistent direction helps learn the reverses such as 3 + 6 = 9 and 6 + 3 = 9.
  • To help kids with A.D.D. (and their friends) the teacher can make practice into a sprint-like task. “If you can finish once around the outside, start a new lap at the top and raise your fist in celebration!” Recognize these students as they start a second “lap” either with their name on the board or oral recognition — “Jeremy’s the first one to get to his second lap. Oh, look at that, Mary and Susie are both on their second laps. Stop everyone, time is up. Now switch roles and raise your hand when you and your partner are ready to begin practicing.”

Can’t I copy answer keys for half the students?

Posted on by Dr. Don

Shane asks: After the answer keys are copied onto colored paper, can’t I just make enough copies of answers for half the students? It seems that they will only be using the answer keys while working with a partner and therefore will only need 1 set of keys per pair.

 

Dr. Don answers: Lots of people think this, but here are four examples of issues that make it preferable for each student to have their own answer key, and yes, it should be on colored paper.

1) When students are absent you must pair two students but under the one-answer-key-per-pair both students could be “without” answer keys!  In both cases, their partner has the answer key and that folder is in their desk.

2) When someone comes in to help or volunteer, you want Johnny to practice Rocket Math with that person–but Johnny doesn’t have an answer key–his partner does. So Johnny has to go searching for an answer key.  If Johnny had his own answer key he could just get out his Rocket Math folder and go to work.

3)  The Title 1 or Special Ed teacher or instructional assistant might offer to do extra practice with a student, the student takes his/her folder down to the a place to practice–but doesn’t have an answer key.

4) Alex moves up to division, but his partner doesn’t have an answer key to division–another example where Alex needs his own answer key.

Can a few minutes of fact practice each day be harmful?

Posted on by Dr. Don

Practice is not harmful as long as students are successful.

The best way to practice math facts is by saying them aloud to a person who can tell you if you’re wrong or hesitant in your responses.  If you are wrong or hesitant, you should practice on that particular fact a bit more until you know it well. This is an effective way to learn anything, including math facts.  It is especially valuable if students are given a limited set of facts to learn at each step so they develop and maintain mastery as they learn.  If practice is set up carefully, and students get positive feedback showing they are learning and making progress, it is enjoyable and motivating for students.  This is the essence of Rocket Math.  How in the world could this be harmful?    Only by doing it wrong, and doing it wrong specifically in a way that students are not successful.

If teachers skip the practice and learning part and just give the tests–that would be harmful.  Students won’t get a chance to learn and will experience failure.  The daily oral practice is the heart of Rocket Math–it can’t be skipped!

Daily tests in Rocket Math determine if a student has learned the set of facts he or she is working on, and learned them well enough to have a new set to be added to memory.  If students are not proficient in the facts they are working on now (proficient means being able to say a fact and its answer without any hesitation) then they will become overwhelmed with the memorization and will not be successful.  So it is critical that teachers are certain (based on the daily tests) that students can answer all the facts up to that point without hesitation.  Otherwise they will not be successful and it won’t be enjoyable.

Goals for those daily tests must be based on how quickly students can write.  Slow writers must have lower goals. Fast writers must have higher goals.  Every student’s goal should be “as fast as her fingers can carry her” and no faster.  Arbitrarily raising those goals (expecting faster performance than possible) or arbitrarily lowering those goals (moving students on to the next set before they have mastered the previous set) will cause students to be unsuccessful.

If the checker does not listen and correct errors or hesitations, a student can practice incorrectly and learn the wrong fact.  They can also fail to get the tiny bit of extra practice they need on a fact that they can’t quickly remember yet.  If practice does not proceed as it should, then students will not learn as they should.  Lack of success will make facts practice onerous or counterproductive.  The teacher has to monitor students practicing carefully to make sure they are doing it the right way to be successful.

Rocket Math has very explicit instructions here and answers to FAQs here.  I have a 3 hour training DVD here.  I am available at don@rocketmath.com  to answer questions.  Practicing math facts ten minutes a day is NOT harmful, if we do it in the way that students are successful.

Are you ready for summer?

Posted on by Dr. Don

Preparing now can insure that students will maintain their Rocket Math learning over the summer.

(1) The simplest and most important thing you can do to get ready for summer is to save those Rocket Math folders at the end of the year. The folders can then be given to the next year’s teacher, so he or she knows where the student left off. Given special practice techniques at the start of fall (outlined below), students do NOT have to go back or start an operation all over again the next year. Some students take months to get where they are in an operation, and it is a terrible waste of their time to start them over. Especially if they have new faster writing speed goals, now they really have to work hard to master each set and it may take them quite a while.

(2) Make sure to take a few days to re-teach your students how to correct and when to correct (errors and hesitations).  Teach this by modeling errors and hesitations and have students be your checker and model how to correct for the other students to see.  Keep working with that student until you get perfect corrections even on hesitations.  Then “rinse and repeat” with another student.  Do this teaching and modeling for ten minutes each day for the first week or so.

Two students participating in one of Rocket Math's math fluency programs(3) Start students practicing on the last set completed (passed) the previous year but for the first five practice sessions, practice on that set in a special way. First practice in partners around the outside for two or three minutes. But then, instead of taking a written test, have students practice in pairs orally with the test (inside the box), for two minutes. Practice the same way as around the outside. Have the student read each problem aloud and answer it from memory. The checker will need to have the test answer key. Practice for two to three minutes and then switch roles. This practice will provide the necessary review of all the facts learned so far, and will bring them right back up to speed.

(4) After a week of oral practice sessions with the test, then allow students to take the written test. Evaluate students based on their writing speed goals from last year (don’t re-test and raise them). Arrange for extra oral practice on the test for anyone who doesn’t pass. In the extra practice, make sure they orally practice the test in the center as well. Keep up the extra practice, on that same set until they pass. They should get there in a few days. They already learned this, they are just bringing it back. They haven’t forgotten it, the connection just needs a little strengthening.

(5) If students finished an operation before leaving, you can start them on the next operation appropriate for their grade. Second graders who have finished addition, for example, would start with subtraction (1s – 9s), and then go on to Subtract from 20, then Skip Counting.  Third graders need to be taught the concept of multiplication first, but then should begin multiplication, regardless of what they completed earlier.  Multiplication is so critical for future success in math you cannot let any child in your room (if you are in 3rd grade or above) leave it without learning those multiplication facts.  Best thing you can do for their math careers.

Now that you know what to do–enjoy the summer!

What best honors & motivates achievement?

Posted on by Dr. Don

Recognition for real, tangible accomplishments, that not everyone gets.

What makes for a great award, or great recognition that really motivates?  In the final analysis, recognition, like an olympic gold medal, is not about what you receive–it’s about how hard you worked to get it.  If students worked hard, and accomplished something real and tangible, then the recognition they are given, regardless of its form, will be valuable and meaningful.  A paper certificate given out by an adult that represents weeks or months of effort, an honest accomplishment, will be highly prized.  Those are the certificates that are posted prominently in the bedroom or on the refrigerator at home, because it was hard to get.

Remember that when you want to honor student achievement at the end of the year.  If you give awards to every student, then an award means little or nothing.  If on the other hand, students know they had to work and put forth effort to earn the reward, then it is a real honor.  Rocket Math has many built in landmarks of accomplishment that are great to recognize publicly.  Certainly completing an operation is one of the most commonly celebrated achievements.
Chase

This student’s teacher tweeted this picture of the student and his Rocket Chart, proving his accomplishment.  This is something to be really proud of, because it represents a real, tangible accomplishment.  Another accomplishment is when a student beats his or her individual best in two-minute timings.  Yet another tangible Rocket Math accomplishment is being able to pass two levels in one week or ten levels in a month!

What motivates students to try to achieve is knowing what has to be done and believing they can do it. This is another reason why recognizing real, tangible accomplishments works so well. If the other students can see what their recognized peer did and they understand what has to be done to get there, they are motivated to get some of that glory for themselves. Getting through Level Z of Rocket Math is something students know they can do, if they just keep working at it. It is hard to believe you will become Student of the Month, if you don’t know what the previous recipients did to achieve that honor. But if you know that working hard and practicing your math facts every day can get you there–then you can believe it is possible.

Can we use Rocket Math worksheets at home?

Posted on by Dr. Don

A parent asks:

I am a parent of a second grader who struggles mightily with her math facts. Her school does not do Rocket Math, although other buildings in our district use your program. I would like to know if your math facts program is appropriate for me to buy to use at home with my daughter. Also, does the Rocket Math basic subscription contain the complete program that a classroom would get?

Dr. Don answers:

Yes, the Rocket Math worksheet program is appropriate to buy to use at home with your child. The basic subscription has everything a parent or classroom teacher needs to run the program. But…

That being said, a parent at home may want to consider using Rocket Math flashcards instead of the worksheets in the original Rocket Math program. Flashcards are designed for one-on-one where the worksheets are designed to run an entire class at the same time. You can download the Flashcard Directions for free–and I highly recommend you doing that, so you know exactly how to work with your child effectively to learn math facts from flashcards. I really like the watch-your-favorite-TV-show-together-and-do-flashcards-during-all-the-commercials plan.

If you are teaching your child math facts at home, you definitely wouldn’t want to work on more than one operation at a time; addition in first grade, subtraction next in second grade, multiplication in third, and division in fourth grade.

The practice procedures are very similar between the flashcards and the original worksheet program. In both cases the student is to read aloud the problems and say the answers from memory without hesitation. The person listening (tutoring) provides the same correction procedure–saying the correct fact and answer, having the student repeat the fact and the answer three times, then doing two more problems before revisiting the target fact (the one on which there was an error or hesitation). The difference is that in the worksheet program students are reading facts from the worksheet, while in the flashcard program the student is reading the facts off the flashcards.

With the worksheet program you will have to print out the worksheets, the writing speed test, the goal sheet and the rocket chart. Each time you give the student the one minute test (to see if they are ready to move on to the next sheet) you’ll use up that sheet and have to print a new one. When your student passes the set of facts on that sheet, you’ll need to print the worksheet for the next set. With the flashcards, no additional printing is required. That alone is reason to use flashcards in my mind.

There is one very special circumstance in which it might be important to use the original Rocket Math worksheets at home. If your child is using Rocket Math in school, AND if the program is not being run correctly, AND if your child is being frustrated–then you might want to get a subscription. Watch our YouTube video on how to tutor Rocket Math.

If you read the Rocket Math Directions FAQs, you will be able to discover what is wrong at school. It may be that not enough time is spent practicing, or practicing the right way. It may be that your child’s handwriting speed was not taken into account when setting their goals. It may be that your child’s student partner in school is not correcting errors or hesitations in the right way. In any case it would be very important to show your child that he or she CAN in fact learn math facts successfully (all children can) and to overcome the frustration that improper use of the program is causing.

So you can buy and use the original Rocket Math worksheet program at home, but think about whether flashcards would be easier than the worksheet program. Teachers can’t effectively use flashcards in their classrooms because they can’t monitor the learning of that many students at once without the testing procedure. But you can when you are home alone with one child at a time–so flashcards can work for you.

Engage Students in Rocket Math during schedule gaps at test times

Filling testing-created gaps in your schedule.

Posted on by Dr. Don

Many schools are starting spring testing soon, and it wreaks havoc with the daily schedule. People outside education don’t really understand how much school schedules are disrupted by attempting to test everyone in the school on the available computers. Not to mention catching all the students who are absent during their assigned time. Disrupted schedules create small gaps in the schedule, which are hard to fill, even more so when not every student is present. Let me present an option to fill those small gaps–do Rocket Math! Here’s five reasons why you should.

1) By this time of the year, students know the Rocket Math routine, so it should not take more than ten to fifteen minutes to run, start to finish. So Rocket Math can fill small gaps.

2) Even if Rocket Math has been done once during the day, a second or even third session during the day will NOT harm students, it will actually help them progress faster. (As long as you have at least a half hour between sessions).

3) It is beneficial for the students in the room even when some students are out doing make-up testing. It won’t require you to re-teach a lesson.

4) In contrast to free reading or make work activities, which only fill time, students doing Rocket Math will be learning critical skills that are necessary for future success.

5) In contrast to the stress of the accountability tests, Rocket Math is something students know well and have success at. They know what they are doing and they see their growth. They know they are learning. This is a powerful antidote to the not-so-straightforward tasks, questions and expectations of the accountability tests.

I highly recommend keeping Rocket Math folders handy for filling those small gaps in the daily schedule caused by testing.