{"id":11555,"date":"2016-04-05T10:57:22","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T17:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/?p=11555"},"modified":"2019-05-08T11:31:50","modified_gmt":"2019-05-08T18:31:50","slug":"why-raise-student-goals-for-passing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/why-raise-student-goals-for-passing\/","title":{"rendered":"Why raise student goals for passing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A parent asks:<\/strong>
\nWhy does the teacher keep raising our daughter’s goal every time she does better on a test? She now has a higher goal than any other child in her class, and she can’t pass in one or two days like she used to. She is getting discouraged. Is this fair? Is this what you recommend?<\/p>\n

Dr. Don answers:<\/strong>
\nYes, this is what I\u00a0recommend. I\u00a0explain the recommendation on the Rocket Math FAQs page<\/a>, item K, “What do I do about fast writers, slow writers, and do goals ever change?”<\/p>\n

Your daughter’s\u00a0teacher is following the directions which do say to raise student’s goals when they demonstrate the ability to write faster. \u00a0Two things tell me it is a good idea for the teacher to raise your daughter’s goal.<\/div>\n
1) Before her goals was raised, your daughter was\u00a0passing much faster than we would like. \u00a0Remember, the goal of Rocket Math is that students should know these facts by heart for the rest of their lives, so extra practice is a good deal.\u00a0 Students who learn an operation in one semester (about 90 school days) are learning as fast as is necessary–and that is practicing for 3 to 4 days on each set of facts before passing. Tell your daughter that you don’t want her to pass until she has practiced for at least three days. \u00a0Help her to be patient and be willing to practice a bit longer.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
2) Your daughter has demonstrated she can write faster than we initially thought. \u00a0We begin by setting individualized goals based on the writing speed test. \u00a0When students\u00a0demonstrate the ability to write faster, we raise their goals. \u00a0\u00a0The goal is to for\u00a0students to practice until\u00a0they know the facts instantly, without any hesitation.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
If a student can write faster, but has lower goals, that student can be hesitant on some facts, and still pass. \u00a0This is not good, because they won’t get as much practice on those facts as they should have. \u00a0Eventually after passing several levels even though the new facts were not fully mastered, the student hits the wall. \u00a0They are too slow on a bunch of facts, and there are too many now to be learned. \u00a0(We can’t learn ten or more similar things at the same time.) \u00a0This is when students get stuck and can no longer move ahead. \u00a0This is not good. \u00a0To prevent this we need students to answer all the facts as fast as they can write. \u00a0That\u00a0means if the student demonstrates the ability to write faster than we initially thought, the student\u00a0should be expected to answer facts at a faster rate than we initially expected.\u00a0 This varies by student, as some students can\u00a0write much faster than others.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
To ensure that students are answering fact questions as fast as their fingers can carry them, we encourage teachers to raise the goals closer to what students have actually done.\u00a0 As long as students can still pass in fewer than six days, that is acceptable and better for them than passing every day. \u00a0Students who pass every day aren’t getting as much practice as we’d like.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Once students have goals over 40 however, the rules change.\u00a0 More on that in another post.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A parent asks: Why does the teacher keep raising our daughter’s goal every time she does better on a test? She now has a higher goal than any other child in her class, and she can’t pass in one or two days like she used to. She is getting discouraged. Is this fair? Is this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0},"categories":[46],"tags":[43,47],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11555"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11555"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39156,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11555\/revisions\/39156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}