I know that basic facts are not the be-all and end-all of maths, but by the time children are at the top end of primary school they should have a reasonable degree of automaticity with their basic facts. This is so the cognitive load is reduced during problem solving, allowing them to pay more attention to the strategies that would be helpful to them.
Automaticity is something we will be working on this term, and this is how I plan on doing it:
- Monday - 50 basic facts get sent home for homework.
- Tuesday - 50 more basic facts get sent home for homework.
- Wednesday - the answers to the 100 basic facts get sent home so that the children can check their homework.
- Thursday - the same 100 facts are given in class as a timed test. Children swap papers and take it in turns to read out the answers, marking correct answers and incorrect attempts.
Some of these things seem counter-intuitive. I have been asked why I send home the answers before the test ("isn't that cheating if they know the answers in advance?") but there is a good reason for doing this.
On Thursday, I want children to score the best possible score on the test. They've had a chance to practise the facts on Monday and Tuesday, but they don't actually know if they got them right or not - and experience has shown me that some will spend a long time learning a 'fact' that is actually incorrect. Sending the answers home allows them to check that they do know the right answer to the basic facts problem.
And when they check the answers, they're seeing the whole equation written out again, so they're sub-consciously doing the problem once again while they're looking for confirmation that they got it right. If they find a mistake then they're more likely to remember the correct answer one they've been shown it, because it scratches the itch of cognitive dissonance that is generated when they see the right equation and an incorrect equation side by side.
And on Thursday when we swap papers and take it in turns to call out the answers and mark them, they're having to read the whole equation again, and they're using their memory of the fact to see if the person reading it out is right or wrong.
So over the week they experience each basic fact a number of times (pardon the pun!) and in a variety of ways. And that repeated exposure and the multiple modes of accessing it (seeing it, completing it, hearing, reading it aloud) all help to develop that automaticity that is so important.
Watch this space for updates in how they do with Maths Cafe, which is being introduced next week.....
Thanks Jo, sound advice here re automaticity and steps (or should I say cycles) to achieve this.
ReplyDeleteMost children at our school go to after-school care till picked up by their parents after 5.30 pm, then home to prepare tea etc. Our parents are not keen for their children to have 100 math questions given 2 days in a row.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Cilla. Just to clarify, students only have to do what they can manage out of 50 facts on Monday, and 50 on Tuesday. They are given the answers on Wednesday, so could choose to just learn those.
ReplyDeleteBecause I run Maths Cafe, students also have the chance to do these basic facts as part of the maths lesson, which means they don't have to be done at home.
Once they have been practising for a little while, the majority of children can do all 100 facts in under 8 minutes (they do get less time than this in the weekly test as they are Y5/6 in my room) which means that homework might take as little as 4 or 5 minutes an evening. It's not designed to be an onerous task. I'm a parent too. :)