Wednesday 25 July 2012

Helping Children Master the Basic Facts (Chapter 10)

Fact mastery relies significantly on how well students have constructed relationships about numbers and how well the understand the operations.


Fluency with basic facts allows for ease of computation, especially mental computation, and therefore aids in the ability to reason numerically in every number-related area. Although calculators and tedious counting are available for students who do not have command of the facts, reliance on these methods for simple number combinations is a serious handicap to mathematical growth.


Teaching basic facts well requires the essential understanding that students progress through stages that eventually result in "just knowing"that 
3 + 7 = 11 or that
5 x 6 = 30.


According to 
Arthur Baroody
a mathematics educator:


Teachers have the responsibility of helping all of their students construct the disposition and knowledge needed to live successfully in a complex and rapidly changing world. To meet the challenges of the 21st century, students will especially need mathematical power: a positive disposition toward mathematics (curiosity and self confidence), facility with the processes of mathematical inquiry (problem solving, reasoning and communicating), and well connected mathematical knowledge (an understanding of mathematical concepts, procedures and formulas). 


I feel that this can help teachers achieve the capability to foster children's mathematical power - the ability to excite them about mathematics, help them see that it makes sense, and enable them to harness its might for solving everyday and extraordinary problems. By teaching content in a purposeful context, an inquiry-based fashion, and a meaningful manner, this approach promotes children's mathematical learning in an interesting, thought-provoking and comprehensible way. 
Eventually, as teachers, we appreciate the need for the investigative approach and to provide practical advice on how to make this approach happen in the classroom. It not only dispenses information, but also serves as a catalyst for exploring, conjecturing about, discussing and contemplating the teaching and learning of mathematics!

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