Consistency Is Key, Especially in Math

Andrea Kay, 6th Grade Math

Can you solve 30 multiplication questions in less than three minutes? 

As we find ourselves at the end of an unprecedented year, there is a bit of anxiety around the upcoming standardized achievement tests. 

CMDS students consistently practice the spiraling skills that are needed for continued growth and confidence in math. They practice the basics daily, work through their frustrations and tighten up their mathematical foundation so that they can have confidence in the face of any mathematical assessment. Addition and subtraction fluency timed tests begin in 1st grade. By the beginning of 3rd grade, students transition to multiplication and division fact fluency.

As our 6th graders prepare for their achievement tests and final exams, they’re clearly years beyond addition and multiplication facts, moving into multi-step math problems, pre-algebra and integers. However, fact fluency is still key to solving these problems correctly! You can’t move forward with higher-level application skills if you’re hung up on the facts.

Consistency is key in many areas of life and daily practice of foundational skills pays off in droves. Even though students are continuously learning new and more complex math skills, these compound skills would fall on deaf ears without the constant refreshing of past skills and the numerical fluency. As levels of mathematics grow in complexity, it is our hope that basic math operations start becoming second nature.

A student’s understanding of the relationship between numbers and how they work together is deepened due in large part to the daily grind they put in. This ensures the fundamentals of math are not lost in the complexity of their new content. That is why wise and successful math students must discipline themselves to consistently work on strengthening their fundamentals. The foundation they have built, the confidence they have acquired, and the numerical fluency they have achieved has given them the ability to solve problems in and out of the classroom. 

Achievement tests? Don’t worry! We’ve got this!