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Math foundation skills are important capabilities which enable the quick and effective processing of math, or what can be characterized as automaticity. These include counting in sequence, digit writing, reading and writing numbers, determining place value, expanded numbers, and number words. The FSM practice exercises in this unit have been tailored, employing a hierarchy of skills, to facilitate rapid acquisition of math facts. The aim for each FSM skill, in terms of both accuracy and rate of response, has been provided to ensure that the skill will be retained.

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Description

Foundation Skills for Math (Part I) – Teacher’s Manual

Fluency in math foundation skills assures students will acquire basic math facts, computation skills, mental math tools, and problem solving skills more readily.  Counting in sequences strengthens a student’s memory and enhances sequential thinking.  Students start to learn to generalize and categorize patterns when they learn to count.  Writing digits fluently is a crucial foundation skill since it is the primary output for many areas of mathematics.  The ability to fluently read and write numbers, identify place values, expand numbers and write number words allow students to use relationships between symbols, words and their values.   Building a strong math foundation allows students to readily acquire more sophisticated math skills, without being overwhelmed by basic math facts and simple computations.

Conversely it should be noted that lack of fluency in FSM  can impede the acquisition and retention of high level math skills and can also negatively influences the learners attitude towards the practice of those skills.  This unit has been constructed with an eye towards optimization of precious practice time, while fostering the learner’s desire for more practice.  It employs achievable chunks, units of material which balance learners strengths and needs, to insure that growth is a key motivational element to practice further.  If a task is too difficult the learner resists and if it is too easy disinterest ensues. The optimal balance occurs when both accuracy and frequency improve at the appropriate rate and there is continual feedback of that success to the practitioner.

Practice needs to be continually measured and monitored for purposes of motivation; the accuracy and speed of performances are recorded with the results being made immediately available to both practitioner and coach. Improvement, which is incremental, and might go unnoticed, will become apparent allowing the learner to climb a motivational ladder on the rungs of their personal bests. To facilitate this dynamic between challenge and achievability and provide immediacy of feedback that motivates further practice these units have been closely integrated with Precision Teaching.

With Precision Teaching a student is timed on specific tasks until he/she can perform a certain amount accurately within a specified amount of time.  Timings are usually one minute, but frequently range from ten seconds to ten minutes.  We record a student’s performance on a Standard Celeration Chart which gives a “learning picture” to the teacher and student, enabling them to make decisions about the student’s learning program.

The goal of timed practice is to build fluency which ensures a student permanently retains the skills taught (retention); can perform them for extended periods of time (endurance); and can easily apply them to new learning situations (application).

These  practice materials for Foundation Skills for Math have been designed and implemented successfully using Precision Teaching.  When you implement Precision Teaching, your students and you will have fun learning, enjoy joint decision making and achieve learning success.

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