Math Fact Fluency

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Fluency Foundations

One of the questions I get asked most, as the Instructional Coach for Technology, is "What programs do we have to help students practice their math fluency?"  Math fluency is an important skill for students to master as they mo

ve through the grade levels.  I do not think it is the end-all-be-all for math skills, but I do know the importance of being fluent in math facts as the problems you face become more difficult.  It is no surprise that math skills build upon themselves as you advance through the grades.  The better you are at the foundational skills (math facts, for example), the easier it will be for you to master the more complex and multi-step problems you encounter later on.

Before EdLaw 2D came into existence, teachers in our district used a program called Xtra Math, pretty regularly.  Xtra Math allows teachers to assign specific math fact families to students to practice their fact fluency.  No fluff.  No games.  Just fluency practice.  This is really an important thing our teachers depended on.  Unfortunately, without paying for a license, the company will not sign our EdLaw agreement.  Until we work that out, I've done some research into different options that may work.

Old School:  Printables

Math-Aids

Before I was an ed tech coach, I was a special education teacher for an 8th-grade team.  My role included co-teaching and independently teaching 15:1 math classes.  My students always benefited from math fact practice in all operations.  Even though I was a "techy," I really enjoyed doing math with good ol' paper and pencil.  My go-to website was www.math-aids.com.  This site is amazing for math teachers to create worksheets for practice!  I didn't use worksheets for everything in math (my students really did well with hands-on activities and project-based lessons), but honestly, they either knew their facts or they didn't.  This site allowed me to create addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division worksheets at all different levels.  It's easy and free.

Pros:  
  • Easy to build; you can choose exactly what you want for fact families and the number of problems
  • Available in 10 different languages including Spanish, French, and German
  • Free, unlimited downloads of PDFs
  • Comes with answer keys
  • Lots of options (not just fact practice!)
  • Can be used for any and all grade levels
  • No worries for EdLaw 2D as teachers and/or students do not need to log in to use it.
Cons:  
  • You have to manually score the pages
  • Uses paper (waste)
  • Lots of advertisements on the website can be confusing

Online Math Fact Practice

Arithmetic Game

This website is no frills, no fuss.  The title of the website is literally, "Arithmetic Game" with the description stating as "The Arithmetic Game is a fast-paced speed drill where you are given two minutes to solve as many arithmetic problems as you can."  When you log in, there are four options for operations.  You can choose as many or as few (only one!) as you want.   With addition and multiplication, you can choose the range of addends or factors you want your students to complete.  For example, if you only want your students to work on the 6's for multiplication, in the first section of the Range, change both numbers to 6 (Range:  (6 to 6) x ...).  The second set of factors would be the range you want to multiply the 6's by.

When your settings are complete, hit the start button.  Then copy the URL from the Omnibox at the top to share with your students.  See below for an image of these directions. 

Directions for Arithmetic Gam
As a companion to this website, I created a template for students to log their progress.  When you open the spreadsheet, you will see directions on how to link the different fluency practices to your sheet.  Along the bottom, you will see the different factors in different tabs.  As students type in the amount they get correct, the colors of the boxes will change.  The lowest score they received will be read while the highest score will turn green.  The other boxes will fade/change based on the range of correct answers.  You do not have to use this, but you can use it as a template if you want.

Pros:  
  • Choose exactly what you want for fact families and the number of problems
  • No advertisements; free
  • Can be used for any and all grade levels
  • No worries for EdLaw 2D as teachers and/or students do not need to log in to use it.
Cons:  
  • Fluency isn't tracked online; need to do it yourself
  • Takes a bit of time to create the fluency practice (see above for a spreadsheet I created that you can use!  I started linking practice, so 2's, 3's, and 4's are complete!)

Fact Monster 

Fact Monster is a website that gives digital flashcards for students to complete.  You can choose from addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, or a combination of add & subtract.  Each set of flashcards gives you 7 levels of difficulty.  For example, Level One problems for multiplication focused on single-digit problems with factors 0 - 5.  On the other end, Level Seven focuses on numbers 3 - 100.  You can see the focus of each level by hovering your mouse over the level number.  A small box will appear with the focus (see the image below).

Even though this is a digital platform, there is no login or tracking available.  This means students would need to either log their own progress on a fluency chart (Click here for a Google Doc of Fluency Charts) or in a math journal of some sort.

Pros:

  • Automatically grades students as they complete tasks
  • Automatically times students
  • Easy to use:  go to the level you want then copy the link from the Omnibox and share via Google Classroom
  • Many options for problems
  • Can be used for any and all grade levels
  • No worries for EdLaw 2D as teachers and/or students do not need to log in to use
Cons:  
  • You cannot pick what problems students are completing (for example, you cannot focus solely on one factor)
  • No online tracking system so students/teachers are responsible for writing down their scores
  • There are some advertisements on the website that can be confusing

Splash Learn

SQUIRREL!
SplashLearn is relatively new to me, as one of our Special Education teachers requested it after I moved into my current role as Technology Coach.  The more I play with it, the more I like it.  Of course, this

isn't just fast facts; SplashLearn has many different assignment options. It also isn't just math!  The website offers ELA and math activities for grades PK - 5.  Of course, today we are focusing on math fact fluency, so I will try to stay on task and focus on just that!

Starting the 2022-2023 school year, SplashLearn added a new "Assign Facts" section to their math curriculum. This program can be used in a multitude of ways.  First, the program offers adaptive practice for students.  Teachers can assign adaptive practice to their classes by choosing how many problems students should solve per day.  As the students progress, the facts adapt to their needs.  One thing I really like about this program is that you can assign activities to your class and then click the button at the top that says, "Go to student experience."  You can then login and see exactly what your students see.  

The program also allows teachers to create custom tests for one student, some students, or an entire class.  This can be given online or printed and given on paper (also a plus!).  You can decide on the operation, numbers used, number of questions, and (if done online) the time per question.

Pros:
  • Automatically grades students as they complete fluency problems
  • Automatically tracks students' progress
  • There are options for games as well as just fluency practice, so teachers can add other skills to their classroom activities
  • Many options for problem/operation types
  • Options to print as well as complete online (as of today there were 987 printable worksheets!)
  • Teachers can easily see the "student experience" to view what the kids see
  • EdLaw 2D approved!  You can log in with your School's Google Account
 
Cons:

  • It is a new program that is quite robust.  It might take a bit to learn how to use it.
  • There are options for games as well as just fluency practice, which might distract students from fact fluency

Final Thoughts

Fluency practice is very important to build foundational skills in mathematics; there is no question about that.  How you want students to exercise and train their brains is up to you.  There are a lot of factors that can affect a teacher's choice of fluency practice.  Just some of the questions you should ask yourself are:
  • Do your students do better with paper?
  • Are they easily distracted by computers?
  • Are they motivated intrinsically to do better for themselves or do they need a class-wide competition to drive them to practice and get better?
  • How comfortable are you, as the teacher, with using technology in your classroom?
  • Do you have time to graph the fluency?
  • Are your students able to graph themselves?
These questions can begin to guide you in your quest to find the right program/method for your students.  As always, if you decide to take the technology route, and you need help, feel free to reach out to me!

Update:

One of the amazing Instructional Coaches I work with found this site:  https://www.fun4thebrain.com/ If you hover over the "Quizzes" drop-down at the top, it allows you to choose your operation.
From there, you can choose the different types of quizzes you want to practice.  Students complete the page and it instantly grades and times them!  One idea was to have them log their work as they go.  Another was to have them print their work when they were done so teachers can have copies and track them.
There are also fun and addicting games on the site to help practice math facts.  It's definitely worth a look!





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