Penny Andrews
Yes, you can teach fluency in ten minutes a day. Fluency is such a big part of a student’s math learning journey that you may be tempted to spend many class periods a week working on fluency with students. I want to show you how consistently spending ten minutes a day is a great approach to building students’ fluency. With this approach, you’ll not only build their ability to work easily with numbers, but some of the ways to work on fluency are amazingly engaging and fun!
Before we get started with the nitty-gritty teacher talk, if you are working on transforming your math classroom into a space where students actively engage in their learning to practice fluency and math concepts, grab my 10 Free Math Activities. No gimmicks, no sales, no nonsense with this freebie- just one way I can help with making math hour the favorite part of the day for every student!
Why Do Students Need to Work On Fluency?
So what is up with students needing to work on fluency in math? Won’t they naturally “pick it up”? Well, some students may not need a lot of extra practice to be able to easily work with numbers, but most students need many opportunities and practice to master fluency.
Just like in reading, once students become fluent, they can begin to really hone in on content and use reading to learn. In math, it is much the same. Once students become competent with numbers, they can begin focusing on problem solving and basic computational skills will not create a stumbling block for them. Poor fluency skills become a barrier to feeling successful at math.
What Does Fluency Look Like?
Fluency in math can look different depending on the student and the grade level. You can also hear fluency when students are counting. Skip counting, and counting backwards requires a measure of fluency with numbers.
A student showing fluency in third grade who is adding 56 and 54 may think “I can add both fifties to make one hundred. I know 6 and 4 is ten, so it would be 110.” A fluent fifth grader who is asked what half of 0.5 is may think or be able to verbalize, “five tenths is the same as 50 hundredths so half of 50 hundreds would be 25 hundredths.”
Many teachers think of fluency as the ability to recall math facts such as multiplication and division. Automatic recall of facts is great, don’t get me wrong, however, as someone who still has to think of 6 x 9 as 3 times 9 doubled, some students may never get to automatic recall. The goal for students is to be able to easily find the answer without a lot of brain power. I tell students that any strategy that works is fine to start with. We can always work on ways to improve fluency as we get more practice.
How Do I Get Started with Teaching Fluency in Ten Minutes a Day?
Let’s think about third graders at the beginning of the year. Likely, you will be doing some review of addition and subtraction. You may spend a couple of weeks on “shoring” up their computational skills and ensuring they know basic place value skills. You are also working on establishing your math classroom culture and climate. You want students to be engaged, collaborative, and accepting of everyone’s current skills and abilities.
I often start with a whole group, ten minute “Around the World” activity that students love. I use about 6 or 7 dice and model how to add them up quickly by grouping numbers that make ten. We go around the room as students practice adding quickly. My number one rule for this activity is that everyone needs to be actively adding each time I roll. That way, each student is getting about 24 practice times during the ten minute period.
This activity is great to start the year because of several reasons. It is super engaging and low stress. I model how to encourage students, even when they don’t move to the next spot. I am also establishing my expectation that every student engages and participates and we are all observing and appreciating other students’ skills.
Another Benefit of Teaching Ten Minutes of Fluency Every Day
As students are practicing fluency and becoming acquainted with my classroom culture and expectations, I am assessing the heck out of my students. I am watching for each student’s current math competency. For example, during our Around the World activity, I am looking for whether:
- Students can fluently add any single digit number to ten
- Students recognize two or three numbers that add to ten
- Students can add on from any given number
- Students recognize the number of dots on a dice from the configuration (This is important since we will be using alot of activities with dice.)
- Students can keep track of more than two numbers at a time as they are adding new numbers to an established sum
- Students who enjoy competition versus students who do not
- Students who process fast and students who need more time to process
- Students are using strategies to add numbers together like “I have ten and thirteen so I know I have 20 and 3 more for 23”.
It is vital to me to quickly learn my students’ strengths and areas we need to “shore up”. If I find half my class struggles to recognize pairs of numbers that add to ten, guess what we will be working on that day? I would probably even add that to homework and revisit it several times that week for the first ten minutes a day.
On the flip side, if I find the majority of my students can add quickly and efficiently, I may add more dice, or change out the dice with “special” dice that have double digit numbers on each side.
What is Another Example of a Ten Minute Fluency Activity?
Another student favorite is Mental Math. When I announce it is time for Mental Math, students know to get a blank piece of paper and draw answer boxes. They number them 1-6. I read off each problem three times and students compute mentally, then write their answer in the correct box.
Forcing students to work without paper is a “heavy lift” at first, but students quickly become adept at using strategies to compensate. You may see students try to write in the air, but after the first time, when you review the mental strategy, this will disappear.
Some examples of mental math questions may include:
- Write the sum of 26 and 33
- Write the total number of legs on 4 cows and 6 chickens
- Write the difference between 56 and 16
- Write the total number of sides on 5 triangles and 3 hexagons
- Write the total amount of money of 6 quarters, 6 dimes and 6 nickels
The important part of this activity is to go over each answer so students can assess their accuracy. For each problem I ask students to model their thinking out loud. We are reinforcing several things here:
- There are many ways to solve problems, no one way is the right way
- We are listening to other students’ thinking and following how they are thinking about the problem
- If we don’t get it right today, we will have a better chance of getting the correct answer next time which is growth!
- Identifying strategies we use to solve problems
- Learning and reinforcing math language and basic math knowledge
If you are working on students tracking their progress, this is a good activity to do that. I might plan on doing mental math once a week for 8 weeks. Students can track their own scores and see how they progress.
If you are interested in having more mental math questions, check out my resource 3rd Grade Mental Math.
Why Ten Minutes a Day for Teaching Math Fluency?
Ten minutes is a perfect time for students to practice fluency every day. It is just like stretching before working out, fluency warms up the brain before engaging in learning new concepts and putting math to work while problem solving. Remember, students are going to be doing math computation and using strategies all throughout your math lesson, but starting the day with a dedicated time for fluency allows students to focus on working with numbers in efficient ways that builds connections.
More Resources
For more information on building math fluency in primary grades, check out Jennifer’s blog at Positively Learning. Fact Fluency Math Routines
A great blog post to read on why fluency is so important is Jackson Best’s Here’s why Mathematical Fluency is Critical for Problem Solving and Reasoning
Need more instructional strategies for teaching math? Check out Larry Ferlazzo’s blog 4 Teacher-Recommended Instructional Strategies for Teaching Math.
Check out one of my latest blog posts 5 Powerful Student Created Math Tools
