Math speed drills

[delphine]

What are your thoughts on math speed drills? DS is in 3rd grade and they have been practicing addition and subtraction speed drills since the beginning of the school year (early AUGUST, we start early here). These consist of 100 basic addition or subtraction facts and they are supposed to complete them in under 5 minutes.

When I reviewed DS's grades online, I realized that these count as a grade. I don't know why, but I thought they were more for "fun" or extra learning.

Anyway, he has done poorly on all of them. He knows all of the math facts and has been doing double digit multiplication since kindergarten and long division for over a year now.

I'd just like to get some thoughts on the pros and cons of this kind of testing.

[whatsnextmom]

I understand why they do them. It is in the best interest for kids to be very solid, accurate and quick in their math facts. However, I do believe that such heavy focus and use of grades on these tests can be damaging though.

The best my DD (now 13) could ever do on those timed tests was "barely passing" and that was with daily flashcard work. She truely felt "bad in math" for many years as a result. As it turns out though, DD is very strong in math conceptually. She has soared in the higher maths currently working 2 years ahead in the curriculum. She's that one kid in AP Physics who can caculate all those bonus problems. She just doesn't have the rote memory needed to spit out math facts in rapid succession. In fact, she still uses her fingers at times (as do I.) My DS fairs better in this reguard but he's still not as strong at speed tests as some.

It's not bad for kids to strive to be faster with their math facts. Working towards your personal fastest isn't such a bad thing. Being graded on something that could just be in your genetic make-up isn't fair and couterproductive in my eyes though.

[eepster]

The main thing to keep in mind about basic arithmetic drills (I will not call them "math facts") is that they have about as much to do with actual mathematical ability as ability to write in medieval calligraphy with illuminations has to do with reading comprehension.

[lauren]

Whatever the pros and cons, this practice usually goes away by 4th grade!

[LynnS6]

Originally Posted by lauren

Whatever the pros and cons, this practice usually goes away by 4th grade!

Not here! Our 4th grader is still doing them. It's driving me nuts because they're giving him single digit addition. At least make him do multiplication!

I understand why kids need to get these things memorized, but they are hard. I don't think ds does them every day in 4th grade, but at least once a week.

[Geofizz]

Originally Posted by LynnS6

Not here! Our 4th grader is still doing them. It's driving me nuts because they're giving him single digit addition. At least make him do multiplication!

DD's in 5th grade math. They do 60 second timed multiplication drills 3 times a week. However, they aren't graded on them, and each kid keeps a table of data on the number they complete and their accuracy, and now plotting their improvement through time. The focus on personal improvement is clear and well done.

[dbsam]

My children are in first grade and they are being timed to solve math problems. I think it is ridiculous. They barely know their addition and subtraction and being pressured to have seconds to finish each problem seems crazy to me. I'm guesing the reason is to better complete math questions in testing situations. Even thought they could add double digit numbers in their head this summer, my children are not doing well with this timed and written task. They seem to be regressing with their math skills and panic. They came from Montessori Kindy where it wasn't done. Other parents of first graders said their children were timed for 'math facts' (a term I never heard of prior to this year) in Kindy.

My children are graded on these timed tests. They had a great understanding of math and enjoyed it - not any longer.

[whatsnextmom]

Whatever the pros and cons, this practice usually goes away by 4th grade!

Not here either.They didn't stop until 6th grade.

[WantRice]

I couldn't resist commenting on one of these threads. Here goes my opinion.

Timed math drills are not inherently bad. It's how they are handled by the teacher and the way in which they are presented to the children. In my class (grades 1, 2, and 3), the children love the 5 minute drills because the focus is on PROGRESS. It is not about getting a certain score because the teacher thinks they should or about beating a classmate. They compete with themselves and set goals based on how they did the previous time. When they reach their goal, boy do they feel such a sense of accomplishment. They actually CHOOSE to work on practice sheets in the class and even take practice sheets home with them so they can improve! Oh, and it's their right to keep their score private from others if they want to, but we also work on being supportive each other and being happy for each other's accomplishments. I see many high fives and hear many comments such as "nice job!" and "wow, you're really improving." I imagine it feels great to hear that kind of feedback from your classmates.

Their scores aren't counted for a grade of any kind either, so I'm sure that helps. It's for pure self-improvement.

I feel that math facts ARE important because quick and efficient computation frees up the brain to think about the logic and steps involved in solving more complicated problems. Once a child is at the point of having to do 4 digit addition, if it takes them 5 minutes to complete a single question because they have to draw tallies or use a number line, they won't have enough time to get in the required practice to get really comfortable with what they're doing. This could have a negative impact on all their future math studies as they will fall further and further behind.

[delphine]

Thanks for all the responses. You've given me a lot to think about. I do agree that math facts are important. The funny thing about my ds is that he KNOWS the facts and can answer any of them when asked verbally and can certainly do them on paper. It's just the timed aspect of it that seems to give him trouble.

I love the idea of each child tracking their own progression. That would not have been a problem with me at all. I may just have to resign myself to the fact that he is probably not going to do well on these and his grade is going to be impacted. (hard for me to do).

WantRice, what would you recommend for a parent that we could do at home to help his progress on these? Download them and just practice them every night?

Thanks.

[ImaSophie]

My son is in 2nd grade they do math speed drills. The first test was the zero's, then the one's, then two's, etc. They have 36 problems and they had a minute to do the zeros, 1 min 15 sec for the ones, 1 min 30 sec for twos, etc. They test every other Friday.

Seems innocent enough I don't necessarily agree with them BUT I was fine with it at first. The problem is if they miss more then THREE answers (which puts them at less then a 90% for the drill) they fail the drill. They then get a chance to retake the drill for a passing grade the following Friday.

That is my issue it counts for a grade but unless you get a 90% you get a failing grade. My son is good with math, he knows the answers he just is not good with speed drills. The teacher even told us that they want them memorizing all of the math facts no time for counting on fingers.

[ALittleBitCrunchy]

Delphine,
I have a third grader, too, and he has been doing 10 minutes of 'math facts' every night this year. There is no end in sight. My son has great scores on the 50 question tests at school if he's being graded for knowledge but because it's speed, he appears to be really struggling. In our case, the results ARE included in grades. It was causing stress at home because he hated doing them and kept insisting that he was "just bad at math." It bothers me because he ISN'T bad at math - he just isn't quick enough. I've figured out a work around that has made it easier for us. I ordered Personal Trainer Math used off Amazon and he plays it every night on his DS, as does my DD. They each do a daily test and a 50-cell Kageyama challenge (I am probably misspelling that, BTW). Since there isn't a timer, they don't mind. They are only racing themselves. Plus, I'm not constantly fighting over flashcards or printing out practice tests. We've been using it for a few weeks and it's usually what he asks to do first each night. Not sure how you feel about video games, but I wanted to put the option out there. It's really helped at our house!

[kittywitty]

Crashing your forum as a homeschooler!

I didn't start them until 4th grade in school. My older kids are 3rd-4th grade and actually have *asked* me to do these with them to practice. They are also hyper-competitive, though. So I don't discount them entirely, but I think they should be for practice, not grades. Some kids don't do well with the timed part.

[dbsam]

Originally Posted by ALittleBitCrunchy

kept insisting that he was "just bad at math." It bothers me because he ISN'T bad at math - he just isn't quick enough.

My children are also saying this. It saddens me that at age six they went from being excited about learning math to deciding they are no good at math.

[WantRice]

Originally Posted by delphine

WantRice, what would you recommend for a parent that we could do at home to help his progress on these? Download them and just practice them every night?

Thanks.

Hi Delphine. That's great that your son knows the facts and can answer verbally and on paper as you say. He really can only get faster from here! When they do the drills in class, are they allowed to jump around to whichever question they want to do or do they have to do them in order? Sometimes it's helpful if they can polish off the simpler questions first and then move on to the more challenging ones.

At home, you can help him get faster in a systematic way. Some things to reinforce:

1) Questions that involve adding 1 or 0. These should become fast pretty quickly.
2) The doubles are usually easier to remember 4+4, 6+6, etc.
3) Make sure he understands that 5+2 is the same as 2+5 and so on for all the other combinations.
4) Practice making all different combinations that add up to 10. This will knock off quite a few.
5) Try to help him relate the more difficult questions to the doubles once he knows those well. For example, 5+5 is 10 so 5+6 is one more than that which makes 11. 7+7 is 14 so 7+8 is 15.

Games using 2 dice will give lots of practice with the combinations up to 12. And yes, practicing drills at home will help as well. Although, I probably wouldn't do them as timed drills at home, unless he was up for it. I would try to take any judgement off the score he gets at school and draw his attention more towards improving bit by bit. This will hopefully inspire him to want to practice. Help him reflect on which questions seem to give him the most trouble and do up some extra practice sheets that target those questions. You can go to themathworksheetsite.com and they have 5 minute drills or shorter practice sheets where you can choose which numbers to target.

I hope that helps a bit

[eepster]

Originally Posted by WantRice

Hi Delphine. That's great that your son knows the facts and can answer verbally and on paper as you say. He really can only get faster from here! When they do the drills in class, are they allowed to jump around to whichever question they want to do or do they have to do them in order? Sometimes it's helpful if they can polish off the simpler questions first and then move on to the more challenging ones.

At home, you can help him get faster in a systematic way. Some things to reinforce:

1) Questions that involve adding 1 or 0. These should become fast pretty quickly.
2) The doubles are usually easier to remember 4+4, 6+6, etc.
3) Make sure he understands that 5+2 is the same as 2+5 and so on for all the other combinations.
4) Practice making all different combinations that add up to 10. This will knock off quite a few.
5) Try to help him relate the more difficult questions to the doubles once he knows those well. For example, 5+5 is 10 so 5+6 is one more than that which makes 11. 7+7 is 14 so 7+8 is 15.

Games using 2 dice will give lots of practice with the combinations up to 12. And yes, practicing drills at home will help as well. Although, I probably wouldn't do them as timed drills at home, unless he was up for it. I would try to take any judgement off the score he gets at school and draw his attention more towards improving bit by bit. This will hopefully inspire him to want to practice. Help him reflect on which questions seem to give him the most trouble and do up some extra practice sheets that target those questions. You can go to themathworksheetsite.com and they have 5 minute drills or shorter practice sheets where you can choose which numbers to target.

I hope that helps a bit

All of these suggestions assume that the student needs practice with the actual computation, but for many kids (and it sounds like the case here since she says he is able to do the computation fine verbally) it is just being able to write the numbers down fast enough. For many students, knowing 2+2=4 will be nearly instantaneous, but writing out the number 4 will still take them 2 or 3 seconds.

If you have 100 question, and it takes you on average 2.5 seconds to write each answer, then it will take you 250 seconds or a little over 4 minutes simply to write down the answers. If it is a 5 minute test, that leave less than a minute to write your name at the top, erase mistakes and simply to read the questions carefully. The actual computation could be completely automatic, and still students with slow hand writing are going to do poorly.

[WantRice]

Originally Posted by eepster

All of these suggestions assume that the student needs practice with the actual computation, but for many kids (and it sounds like the case here since she says he is able to do the computation fine verbally) it is just being able to write the numbers down fast enough. For many students, knowing 2+2=4 may be nearly instantaneous, but writing out the number 4 will still take them 2 or 3 seconds.

It didn't occur to me, based on the OP's posts, that the problem was the physical act of writing the numbers. I assumed that although he could get the answers, his recall was too slow. If it's the physical act of writing that's the problem, then writing practice and fine motor work could help. And again, he will only get faster as his writing skills mature. If there is some kind of physical disability that will make it impossible for him to write with ease, maybe accommodations can be made for testing on the computer or for oral testing with flashcards.

[DisplacedYooper]

Originally Posted by whatsnextmom

The best my DD (now 13) could ever do on those timed tests was "barely passing" and that was with daily flashcard work. She truely felt "bad in math" for many years as a result. As it turns out though, DD is very strong in math conceptually. She has soared in the higher maths currently working 2 years ahead in the curriculum. She's that one kid in AP Physics who can caculate all those bonus problems. She just doesn't have the rote memory needed to spit out math facts in rapid succession. In fact, she still uses her fingers at times (as do I.)

Yep, this is true... I just finished my PhD in physics in August, and yesterday, I essentially counted on my fingers to add up the hours I needed to pay DS's nanny for. Most of the grad students I know are pretty weak in arithmetic - you just don't use numbers in math much at the upper levels! That said, I do know all the single digit facts. But, I don't understand the emphasis on speed. IMO, it's more important to take the time to make sure you're right than to make mistakes because you're trying to beat the clock.

[mar123]

My kids do math speed drills starting in 4th grade- they complete addition, they go on to substraction, then multiplication, etc. They do not count as a grade in 4th but they do in 5th. The trick is the test is the same test every week, so it should be easier to get them quickly.

One of the reason teachers do this is because some standardized tests are timed; I teach ACT prep for reading comprehension and the students have the hardest time with the fact that it is a timed test. Some state tests may be timed as well. If the kids know the math facts easily and quickly, it gives them more time to work on the solving of the equation.

[MusicianDad]

Evil! Evil, evil, evil! Speed math drills should be cleansed with fire!!!

Being fast at math does not equal being good a math. I would rather my children get the right answer after five minutes of work than the wrong answer in five seconds. I am very adamantly against this drive some schools have towards fast math. The reason has all ready been stated by previous posters, but I will say it again. These timed math drills designed to encourage faster math work are very, very good and making a child who has a natural understanding of math but who works through each and every problem ( which is a good thing IMO) think they are no good at math. If they are lucky, after a few years they realize what sort of skills they do have in math and excel at it. If they aren't, it takes less than a few years to give up on the subject all together and they don't even bother to try in math class, not realizing that passing math without actually trying is a clear sign that what the fast math drills taught them was dead wrong.

MusicianDad, B.Sc. in physics and occasional finger counter who sucks big time at "fast math"