Let’s talk Fact Mastery.

You know the ones; addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

The facts that everyone needs to master to function in upper-level math. We all know that students need to learn them to automaticity to be effective in more complex mathematics, but students sometimes struggle with true mastery. The best, most efficient, easiest fact mastery method I have ever seen or used is what I am going to share today.

For decades we have used flash cards and fact sheets, games, and more. These are all great tools, but they have one major flaw that went overlooked for a long time until Marion Stuart created a smart invention called, “Learning Wrap Ups.”

Now think about this for a minute, if we are only giving flash cards, playing games and fact sheets that show number sentences to solve, we are setting some of our students up for failure. Here is what I discovered as the math lead teacher in my school, and later confirmed on a larger scale as the math supervisor in my district. Consistently, three issues occur with just using cards and sheets.

1. Students with fine motor skills (printing or writing issues) have a hard time completing the sheets with any speed.
2. Students with reoccurring incorrect answers MASTER the problems WRONG, building a schematic understanding in their brains for the wrong answer connected to that problem. Remember, they are writing the answers or calling them out, what happens if they LEARN it wrong? We all know how hard it is to correct an error in learning.
3. The kinesthetic child has a hard time with mastery because they are not moving during this restrictive process. Their best learning happens when they are moving and engaged.

All three of these lead to frustration, and rarely are the students fast and effective in their accurate mastery of the facts.

I am reintroducing an old idea (with over 30 years of success) that you may have even used, but never considered WHY it was so effective or WHY it should be a key element in your fact mastery toolkit. I am talking about Wrap ups by Learning Wrap ups company. These boards(new ones look like keys) are fun, addictive (especially to kinesthetic, and oral learners) and very effective in fact mastery.

Imagine for a minute what happens when the child that has trouble staying in their chair or writing on paper is given a Wrap Up board or key. They can move and even see the correct answers on the boards. So, they are moving, and they are either mentally and/or auditorily saying the problem, seeing the problem, and always getting a correct answer. This format is success oriented and gives students confidence and encouragement to continue.

All of that is enough to make you want to run out and buy a class set right now, but there is more! When using this method, students start to want you to record and improve their time or even have you race them, they are excited to do it faster, and faster. When is the last time ANY child asked to be timed for a fact test if they were not the fastest in the class? They start to fill in the gaps in their learning by seeing the products and factors they can start to visualize the fact sets and multiples based on what they see on the board.

For example, many students know several facts on the board already even for the x 7s board that seems to be a challenge along with the x 8s facts. It is just the ones in the middle that give them so much trouble (hint – I will show you why and how to fix that later in this post). The board helps them to see that multiplying by 7 has the same multiples every time. They start to realize that the two facts they did not know so well falls between 7 x 6, and 7 x 9. So, if they know the surrounding facts, they can deduce what 7 x 7 and 7 x 8 would be. The board or key contains the correct answers, preventing mistakes from forming or a need to unlearn any facts. Also, it reinforces speed and accuracy while building a strong mastery of the facts for the 7s.

I have seen students complete all of the 1-12 fact boards in less than 2 minutes so just seconds per board. Now, some of my MOST effective learners were struggling students with paper and pencil facts and practice. All of my students mastered the boards and wanted to practice.

If we now know that a well-rounded fact mastery toolkit needs Wrap ups, and then we combine it with some practice pages, games, fact sheets as well as recording and encouragement forms that can be used in 10 days for a concentrated focus you should have the best possible solution for your students.

Need more information? Or are you ready to order? If you are ready to order, here are the LINKS. 

One last point I promised to make in the post was about how when you get to the facts for the 7s and 8s. So, when a student gets to this day, they already know most of the facts from earlier mastery. But, these few facts are the most missed facts on state and standardized tests and even College Boards and the GRE. So, they need a string focus and a strong method to help them master these. 

Using this chart, (there is a different color for each day) you can see that the student only needs to master a few facts to master the whole board, but if they understand communitive property, they only need to learn three new facts (blue) for the 7s day and the 8s only two facts(green). There is power in a student understanding this along with other insights included in the program.

If you want your child, or your student to perform at their highest level, and to be able to move fluidly to advanced math and problem solving, fact master, true mastery is needed.