First Grade math

[Red Pajama]

How well does (did) your first grader have math facts? My boys seem to be doing well, but one has his math facts (addition/subtraction) very fast, and the other still is thinking long, or counting on fingers for addition facts (7+4,  8+7 sorts of problems). We're doing practice daily at this point, and I'm seeing improvement. I just don't know if what he's doing is normal or in need of catch-up.

[cappuccinosmom]

It really depends on the child.  I have one who struggled and struggled with math, and did not do well with memorizing the facts (and this has continued into 4th grade with multiplication and division).  I have another who was figuring out addition and subtraction just by asking questions, between ages 4 and 5.  The two just have very different "processing centers" for math.

What has helped the one who is having difficulty is just practice and more practice.  It still does not come naturally to him, but he does remember more of the facts, the more he practices.

[geemom]

I just figure he's getting something some reinforcement out of the finger counting and it is still practice, just in a different way from your other son.  First grade is too early to panic :)

[laohaire]

I don't know what's normal either, but our first grader doesn't have her math facts down at all. She is still 'figuring" everything.

However, I'm not worried about it because she LOVES math. She doesn't seem quite ready to memorize anything, but really enjoys manipulatives and visual aids. I also do kinesthetic math with her - we label our stairs with the numbers 1 - 16 (and the downstairs floor is 0 of course) and I'll call out "4 plus 5!" and she'll go from stair number 4 up to stair number 9 and say "4 plus 5 equals 9!" I'm hoping some of this will "stick" so she's relying on memory some, but for now, I'm satisfied that she just really enjoys it.

She takes very, very strongly after her father (I joke sometimes that her mother is the mail lady - just because she just so strongly resembles him in personality and not really me) and her father has serious math anxiety. So he is amazed that she likes math and feels like she's good at it.

Another thing I do is games with dice. I actually considered it an achievement when she didn't need to count the dots on the die each time; now she instantly knows what she rolled. So the next step is games with two dice, so she can add them together. It almost doesn't matter what the game is - Monopoly works fine, or a really simple homemade setup where you just move through the squares.

I don't think my kiddo is advanced in math right now, and is probably a bit behind her peers currently. But I know she is coming from a right-brained way of thinking, and I feel that if her love of math is nurtured in her thinking style, she might become very strong in math in the future. Right brained thinkers are good at intuitively getting answers without knowing how they arrived at it (solving for X in algebra for example), manipulating equations in their heads (including adding four digit numbers or multiplying multiple digits, rearranging more complex algebra equations, etc.), geometry, and other skills that benefit from visualization.

That's not to say I don't value memorization of math facts. I definitely do. And I will be making sure she does it - but I just don't think she's quite there yet, and I'm content to wait. So that's one peer for you to compare to.

[pigpokey]

If you want to solidify math facts, I strongly recommend this program for absolute mastery:

http://bigbrainz.com/

My kids are using Timez Attack for early 3rd grade, times table memorization and I plan to use it for additional also when they complete multiplication tables.  I believe they just released the addition and subtraction modules.   

[moominmamma]

I don't think there's anything wrong with not having addition facts memorized at a first-grade level. You can actually make an argument that too-early memorization can interfere with developing the conceptual and mathematical skills that come of having the experience of "figuring out" each sum anew. For instance if you don't have 9+5=14 in your head as a bit of information that requires only retrieval, not computation, you don't get the experience of computing repeatedly. A kid who has to count that sum out on his fingers over and over will likely eventually start saying to himself "Okay, I'll make the 9 into a 10, and then only add 3." And that little short-cut has led him to a simple form of regrouping, which will give him a little conceptual edge as he ventures forth into higher math.

I certainly never insisted my kids memorize sums. They had some of them memorized when they were at a first grade level, just through repeated use and through meaningful connections with real life (6+6 is a dozen eggs, for example, something my egg-collecting henhouse kids knew inside and out). And many more came gradually through playing lots of dice games, eventually using numeral-dice rather than dot-dice. But I never had the expectation that they'd memorize their sums before moving on to multi-digit addition, subtraction, multiplication and so on. It certainly hasn't hurt their math progress: in fact they're all way ahead of the curve in math level and achievement.

Miranda