MATH FACTS
To help your child progress in mathematics this year and perform higher mathematic functions in the future, it is essential that he or she learn and memorize math facts. By now, your child should possess strong addition and subtraction fact knowledge and has had exposure to multiplication facts. This year we will be building on these skills and working on multiplication and division. As a guide, your child should master the four basic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) by the end of the first quarter of the school year.
Each night, your child should spend 10-15 minutes practicing/memorizing math facts. Any method may be used (flash cards, writing the facts, oral quizzes, computer games, etc.). The interactive website http://www.funbrain.com/math/ may help your child master the operations through playing different games. Another website http://www.math-drills.com provides math fact worksheets. Practice should continue each night until the facts for each have been memorized. Regularly, in class we will be time testing each operation and recording the results on our Math Soar bulletin board. I recommend that your child begin with addition and work on this until all the facts have been mastered. Upon mastery of addition, your child should work on the other operations in the following order: subtraction, multiplication, and division. We will know that your child has mastered each operation after he/she successfully completes the timed quiz given in class.
Please monitor your child’s studying of his or her facts. This can be accomplished when you sign and review your child’s Homework Notebook each night. Fact mastery helps the students as the processes become more complex. In addition to independent reading, math fact drills should be performed Monday through Friday until mastery of each operation is attained.
