Does your child struggle to recall basic math facts? Do they understand a math concept one day and seem to forget it the next? Do they continue to rely on finger counting strategies?

For many students, math can be a source of frustration and they may feel like it's something they're just not good at. With the right teaching approach, every child can feel successful in math. 

The way we look at math instruction can be compared to how we teach reading. In reading, we know that we must start with phonics knowledge and teach the fundamental skills of decoding. Similarly in math, the most successful approach is going to be one that teaches the foundational skills of numeracy (addition, subtraction, multiplication etc.) explicitly and systematically. The goal is that basic math facts will be stored in the long term memory, allowing working memory capacity for problem solving and higher order math thinking. 

In this class, we will begin with an informal assessment of mental math understanding and skills and then set goals towards fluency in whatever level the child is working, whether it is mastering doubles addition and subtraction or multiplication facts. We will continue to build on that foundation of skills to attack more challenging questions (eg. subtracting with regrouping, or 2 digit multiplication). We will work simultaneously on problem solving, by explicitly teaching math vocabulary that we see in word problems to understand what the question is asking and what operation we are doing.

Repetition is key when it comes to math fact fluency, so we will be using various games to keep it fun and engaging :)