Fact Fluency

This week on the blog, we will be discussing fact fluency!  There has been much debate about best practices for teaching and supporting fact fluency.  

What is Fact Fluency?
Fact fluency is the ability to recall basic facts in all four operations quickly with accuracy and efficiency.

• Accuracy-the correct answer.
• Efficiency-a reasonable amount of steps in about 3-5 seconds without resorting to counting.  
• Flexibility-using strategies such as the commutative property. 

Students who are counting manipulatives or fingers to solve 4 + 3 are usually very ACCURATE, but not EFFICIENT or FLEXIBLE. 
Kids who have memorized their facts are ACCURATE and EFFICIENT, but not FLEXIBLE.

How do we support this in the classroom?

Fact fluency should be built on understanding, not just rote memorization. Below are the four number relationships students should develop with numbers 1-20:
1. Spacial Relationships-Recognizing how many without counting. By seeing a visual pattern.  

2. One/2 More or Less-Knowing which numbers are one or two more or less than a given number. (Not counting on or counting back.)
3. Benchmarks of 5 or 10-Since 10 plays such an important role in our number system, (and 2 5s make a 10) students must know how numbers relate to 5 and 10.
4. Part-Part-Whole-Understanding that part of a number can be broken up into two or more pieces. 

Some ideas to reinforce fact fluency would be visual models such as Rekenreks!  

Check out this interactive rekenrek below!

• Students can make and draw arrays or make equal groups with manipulatives to represent fact fluency
• Unifix cubes and number bonds are guided math activity!

Happy Planning!