Your child has been working hard to master the concepts of addition and subtraction. Now, the task before him/her for the rest of the school year is to work on automatic recognition. By second grade they need to be fluent in recalling addition and subtraction facts to 18. We have discussed the need to move beyond using our fingers and numberlines and everyone is ready for the challenge!
Beginning this week, I will be sending timed math practice sheets each week. Twice a week your child needs to complete the timed fact activity and record their results on the log I have placed in the front of their homework journal. Record the date, amount of time given, and number correct on the log sheet.
Set a timer for 15 minutes and encourage your child to complete as many problems as possible in that time. Be sure to stress that only correct problems will count and that correct is always more important than speed. For each attempt, the goal is to get just a little better than the time before.
We will work on addition for a few weeks and then move on to subtraction, and will eventually have mixed practice by the end of the year. When tracking progress, compare addition to addition and subtraction to subtraction. It is very common for addition to be a much faster process than subtraction!
If your child is able to complete all 100 in 15 minutes, reduce the time to 10 minutes and indicate the reduced time on your child’s log sheet. When your child is able to do all 100 in 10 minutes, you can reduce it to seven minutes.
Please let me know if you have any questions about this new math homework.
