#MondayMathBite: Fluency Myth Buster

Myth: We are no longer working towards fact fluency in math, and students no longer have to know their math facts.

Fact: The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics call for rigor which "requires that conceptual understanding, procedural skill and fluency, and application be approached with equal intensity" Fluency is defined as accuracy, efficiency, and flexibility. So, indeed, fluency is the end goal of all the foundational work that we are doing in math.

Furthermore, students are indeed expected to have fluency with math facts for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division at the following grade levels:

The big picture here is that "fluency" is no longer just speed an accuracy. One of my favorite quotes regarding fluency comes from Henri Poincare:
"Number sense and fact fluency is built up of facts as a house is of stones, but a collection of facts is no more [fact fluency] than a pile of stones is a house."
YES. THAT.

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