Rocket Math can make learning math facts easy.\u00a0 But even more important it can make teaching computation easy too!\u00a0 One of the first teachers to field test Rocket Math was able to teach addition facts to her first grade class, and then loop with them into second grade, where she helped them master subtraction facts as well.\u00a0 She told me that because her second graders were fluent with their subtraction facts, they were ALL able to master regrouping (or borrowing) in subtraction in three days.\u00a0 What had previously been a three week long painful unit was over in less than a week.\u00a0 All of them had it down, because all they had to think about was the rule for when to regroup.\u00a0 None of them were distracted by trying to figure out subtraction facts.<\/p>\n
When math facts aren’t memorized, computation will be hard to learn.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong> I used to think computation was intrinsically hard for children to learn.\u00a0 Because it was certainly hard for all of my students with learning disabilities.\u00a0 But none of them had memorized the basic math facts to the point where they could answer them instantly.\u00a0 They always had to count on their fingers for math.<\/p>\n When I learned more about the process of learning, I found out that weak tool skills, such as not knowing math facts,\u00a0 interferes with learning the algorithms of math.\u00a0 When the teacher is explaining the process, the student who hasn’t memorized math facts is forced to stop listening to the instruction to figure out the fact.\u00a0 When the student tunes back into instruction they’ve missed some essential steps.\u00a0 Every step of computation involves recalling a math fact, and if every time the learner has to turn his\/her attention to deriving the math fact they are constantly distracted.\u00a0 That interferes with the learning process.<\/p>\n When math facts aren’t memorized, computation will be hard to do.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong> Having to stop in the middle of the process of a multi-digit computation problem to “figure out” a fact slows students down and distracts them from the process.\u00a0 It is easy to lose your place, or forget a step when you are distracted by the difficulty of deriving a math fact or counting on your fingers.\u00a0 It is hard to keep track of what you’re doing when you are constantly being distracted by those pesky math facts.\u00a0 And of course, having to figure out facts slows everything down.<\/p>\n I once stood behind a student in a math class who was doing multiplication computation and when he hesitated I simply gave him the answer to the math fact (as if he actually knew them).\u00a0 He loved it and he was done with the small set of problems in less than half the time of anyone else in his class.\u00a0 Children hate going slow and slogging through computation.\u00a0Conversely, when they know their facts to the level of automaticity (where the answers pop unbidden into their minds) they can go fast and they love it.\u00a0 That’s why “Because going fast is more fun!” is the Rocket Math tag line.<\/p>\n When math facts aren’t memorized, computation will be full of errors.\u00a0<\/strong> When I learned more about basic learning, I found out that the frequent student errors in computation were not simply “careless errors.”\u00a0 I thought they were because when I pointed out simple things like, “Look you carried the 3 in 63 instead of the 6.” my students would always go “Oh, yeah.” and immediately correct the error.\u00a0 If I asked them they knew that they were supposed to carry the number in the tens column, but they didn’t.<\/p>\n I thought it was carelessness until I learned that such errors were the result of being distracted.\u00a0 Not by the pretty girl next to you, but by having to figure out what 7 times 9 was in the first place.\u00a0 After going through the long thinking process of figuring out it was 63 they were so distracted that they carried the wrong digit.\u00a0 Not carelessness but distraction.\u00a0 Once students instantly know math facts without having to think about it, they can pay full attention to the process.\u00a0 They make far fewer errors.<\/p>\n In short, don’t be cruel.\u00a0<\/strong> If you have any autonomy available to you, first help your students memorize math facts and then teach them how to do computation in that operation.\u00a0 In other words, teach subtraction facts before subtraction computation.\u00a0 If you help them get to the point where math fact answers in the operation come to them without effort, you’ll be amazed<\/strong><\/span> at how much easier it is to teach computation, for them to do it and at the accuracy with which they work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rocket Math can make learning math facts easy.\u00a0 But even more important it can make teaching computation easy too!\u00a0 One of the first teachers to field test Rocket Math was able to teach addition facts to her first grade class, and then loop with them into second grade, where she helped them master subtraction facts 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