Miquon -- do you expect or strive for fact mastery before moving on?

[lindsey]

We're working our way slowly through the orange (first) book. I'm feeling like addition moves quickly after a couple of pages of practice--should my child be memorizing addition facts before we move on to higher numbers and the next section?

 

He's good up to 5s (as in, problems totalling 5! lol) but after that very much relies on the rods. Which I assumed was fine, until I noticed we're due to switch to the subtraction section soon and I started doubting myself. Should we be working with flashcards regularly to memorize these facts, or doing more pages of problems...or does that just come with time and experience? What did you do?

 

I've written up some more practice pages similar to the others in the book, but wanted to ask the masses. :)

[Rachel]

How old is your child? With my 6 year old, I move on even if it requires rods. Over time she is picking up harder problems. That is what I did with my older son as well. Depending on the age, you could use xtra math (it's free), flash cards, or a math app. I had my oldest do those in kindergarten and realized I was better off waiting until the second half of 1st grade though. I don't do extra practice with my current kindergartener and plan to wait until she either asks or is halfway through her 1st grade year.

 

With my 8 year old, I would make him practice if it was sums anywhere up to 20. That isn't an issue for him, but if it was he would definitely be practicing his addition facts.

[Rosie_0801]

I think it is best to treat maths facts separately. Most people's brains aren't very good at memorising them anyway.

 

There'll be plenty more addition practice in the E thread.

[lindsey]

He's about to turn 6! I started it to see if it'd help him with his PS kindy homework. He does great with rods. I need to just have faith in the system, I know. :)

[El...]

We went all the way through with Miquon.  It was fantastic.

 

I never asked Dd to memorize facts at all; in fact, I sometimes insisted that she show me her answers with rods.  At some point, around the middle of the fourth book, she would read a problem, reach her hand toward the box of rods, and suddenly know the answer and write it down.  She was visualizing it! 

 

She is now in mid-3rd grade, using Singapore 3B (Standards) along with BA 3B.  She knows all her addition/subtraction facts, and has not had problems understanding multiplication and division.  She now knows most of those facts, but I haven't asked her to memorize them, either. 

 

Now, we are in a low-reg state, and have had no timed tests yet.  I plan to do our first standardized testing in 4th grade, and that is when speed with facts will matter, right? 

 

For now, I'm really happy with what Miquon gave her.

[Lori D.]

Agree with Rosie, that it's a separate sort of processing issue, so treat math facts separately.

 

And, a lot depends on the individual student. DS#1 seemed born already knowing all his math facts. I don't think we ever even practiced them with him. DS#2 is our math struggler and extremely VSL student. For 6 years we used half a dozen different methods of trying to nail math facts -- all the way up through age 12. At which point, he had some memorized, and could skip count his way to the facts he just could not memorize, and I called it good enough.

 

Your DS will likely be somewhere in between. :)

 

 

If you find you have a non-standard learner, I do want to throw in a plug for the following, which did help here:

 

- triangle flashcards

Focus is fact families which show connection between 3 numbers and addition/subtraction (or, multiplication/division), and each fact family covers 4 math facts, so it reduces memorization by 75%!!! Example: card with the numbers 3, 4, 7 in each triangle corner allows you to see and drill these 4 math facts: 3+4=7, 4+3=7, 7-4=3, 7-3=4.

 

- Times Tales and other visual methods for memorizing math facts

 

- skip count songs and Schoolhouse Rock: Multiplication Rock songs for memorizing factors/multiplication facts

 

 

Some students do well with Math Fact video games to practice, or with timed math fact drills, but our DS#2 would melt down with being timed, and while he loved video games, the math fact ones did not work for him, so it was better all the way around to find other solutions (which I listed above).

 

Also, not needed here, but others on this board have said this has worked for them: IF, some years down the line, the student still can't get multiplication math facts down by the time you get into long division, hand the child a chart of math facts to just look up the facts as needed -- often they start absorbing the math facts to speed up the process of division problems.

 

Some very bright people just can NOT memorize math facts; a very smart dear friend of mine was in middle school and still could NOT memorize math facts. She is musical, and so she memorized some math fact songs and would buzz through the songs in her head to get to the math facts she needed. Just throwing that out there for anyone who is struggling to get their student through math facts -- for some people, it just may not happen, and you just have to find a "work-around" for that student. :)

[nature girl]

I almost think it's best at this age NOT to rote-memorize addition/subtraction facts, because they get a much better sense of what the operations mean if they're not just spouting numbers. We used RS, and my DD now uses her "imaginary abacus" to visualize the operations. I don't think she has most number bonds above 7 memorized, but she can figure them out almost as quickly by picturing the Alabacus in her head, and can actually do it pretty well with numbers up to 100. We only used Orange sporadically, but I'd imagine with practice the rods work in pretty much the same way.

[HomeAgain]

Here's the progression I noticed with mine (not using Miquon, but using rods):

 

Full rod work - each part of the problem is laid down, then matched to a single rod (or a 5 rod + ____)

Half rod work - putting down the beginning of the problem, knowing the rest in the head.

Memorization of facts to 10 after working with them so much

Knowing facts to 20 is usually a 10-rod__#__ + # rod and realizing it's just facts to ten still.

[MeaganS]

I've thought a lot about this as I've gone through it with dd. Here's my thoughts.

 

First, it sounds like you are doing all the addition pages and then moving on to all the subtraction pages. Might I suggest that you bounce around more? I find that it works really well to follow different threads (always going in order within those threads). It makes a more spiral program and creates constant review and alleviates boredom.  I usually will pick a page and have dd pick a page. This works well because she picks the easy/fun looking pages and I can still have her work on the hard stuff.

 

My next thought is that whether a child will pick up the facts or not will totally depend on the child. My guess is that for normal children, it will work. For my older dd, Miquon was an absolute bust. She doesn't learn that way, has some math issues (possible dyscalculia) and won't make those connections on her own. Even after a few years of explicit math facts instruction, she still doesn't have her +/- within 10 down. DD5, however, has thrived with Miquon. She is almost done with the third book and I will say that I have faith in the system. She has learned her facts very well and can manipulate numbers in ways that impress me. I have never done explicit math facts work with her. She just started to get it. So what I would do, if I were you, is wait until the end of the red book before worrying about it. If, by the end of the red book, it looks like the math facts aren't sinking in, I would maybe add something like MEP to the mix. MEP level 1 does an amazing job at teaching about the numbers under 20. I added it to Miquon for dd when she started the red book because I liked how taught in a different, but still excellent way. Between the two, dd5 has thrived (she's almost done with MEP 1) and I feel zero need to drill her math facts.

[lindsey]

I only have the orange and red books, so hadn't been planning on continuing along threads for that reason--plus, the addition in the red book is a lot higher and more complex (more numbers being added, etc), so it seemed quite advanced for him! But I was looking at it like he'd need to be basically memorizing those facts, so that changes things. I'll let him do the few pages I just wrote up, and then I'll look at the red book again. :) Thank you, all!

Edited March 28, 2016 by lindsey