When it comes to math facts like 9 plus 7 or 8 times 6 there are only two things to know.\u00a0 1) A procedure to figure it out, which shows that you understand the “concept.”\u00a0 2) What’s the answer?<\/p>\n
It is important for students to understand the concept and to have a reliable procedure to figure out the answer to a math fact.\u00a0 But there is no need for them to be required to use the laborious counting process over and over and over again!\u00a0 Really, if you think about it, even though this student is doing his math “work” he is not learning anything.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Once students know the procedure for figuring out a basic fact, then they should stop figuring it out and just memorize the answer.\u00a0 Unlike capitals and countries in the world, math facts are never going to change.\u00a0 Once you memorize that 9 plus 7 is 16, it’s good for a lifetime.\u00a0 Memorizing math facts makes doing arithmetic MUCH easier and faster.\u00a0 Hence our tagline<\/p>\n Memorizing facts is the lowest level of learning.\u00a0 It’s as easy as it gets.\u00a0 But memorizing ALL the facts, which are similar, is kind of a long slog.\u00a0 Some kids just naturally absorb the facts and memorize them.<\/p>\n A lot of students don’t learn the facts and keep counting them out over and over again.\u00a0 They just need a systematic way of learning the facts.\u00a0 Students need to spend as much time as necessary on each small set of facts to get them fully mastered.\u00a0 If the facts are introduced too fast, they start to get confused, and it all breaks down.\u00a0 Each student should learn at their own pace and learn each set of facts until it is automatic–answered without hesitation and without having to think about it.\u00a0 This can be accomplished by everyone, if practice is carefully and systematically set up.\u00a0 It should be done, because the rest of math is either hard or easy depending on knowing those facts.\u00a0 And don’t get me started about why equivalent fractions are hard!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once students know the procedure, they should stop counting and memorize! When it comes to math facts like 9 plus 7 or 8 times 6 there are only two things to know.\u00a0 1) A procedure to figure it out, which shows that you understand the “concept.”\u00a0 2) What’s the answer? It is important for students […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":837,"featured_media":34198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0},"categories":[101,42],"tags":[35,37,36,120,122,119,47,61,38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36137"}],"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\/837"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36137"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38496,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36137\/revisions\/38496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Math teaching strategy:\u00a0 Go ahead and memorize those facts.<\/h2>\n
(It won’t hurt them a bit.\u00a0 They’ll like it actually.)<\/h3>\n
Rocket Math: Because going fast is more fun!<\/span><\/h3>\n
Math teaching strategy: Find a systematic way for students to memorize.<\/h2>\n