Hello all! I am tutoring a fourth grader who needs a lot of practice with his facts. He is still counting on his fingers for his addition facts. I work with his teacher, and she is concerns that problems are taking him forever because he doesn't have his facts memorized. Do you have any ideas of things I can do with him? Some of the teachers at my school have suggested things, but they always seem to be things you need a group for, and not too much for one on one that are still fun. Any new fresh ideas would be greatly appreciated!
The website sumdog.com is a very fun way that students practice math facts and in time they gear it to the individual student. The students absolutely love it, and it has helped a lot in math facts in grades 1-5.
I would get a set of dot cards (or make one). Then have the student tell how many dots there are and work to write different ways to see the dots. This will eventually help with speed and fluency.
Memorization is a skill that must be learned. It's also boring. I've found that acknowledging that last fact helps students break through some of the mental barriers to memorizing the math facts. I generally say something like "I know this is super boring, but it's important. It'll make your life a lot easier when you do your math homework", and then give a few examples of how having them learned would make things easier and faster. As for the actual facts themselves, don't overload the student. Start with a handful of facts; around 5-7 of them. When he gets those solid, add a few more, while continuing to review the ones he already knows. Keep adding new ones as he gets the old ones memorized. Doing them a few facts at a time will keep him from getting overloaded or overwhelmed.
You might take a look at xtramath.org, as well. Goes through all four sets of facts and does so in a structured way, in that it has you practicing a small set of facts until you get those down, but is concurrently testing to make sure you are remembering old ones. The kid could log onto there each day - it takes maybe 10 minutes or so at most to go through a "session", and it gives you an idea of which problems they are struggling with, so that you can support the student with work on specific sets of math facts (maybe they are struggling with double +1s...you'd know to focus on that, etc...)
