It's a time of multiple tests at the elementary school. Essentially this is a time that asks students to show what they know. We do a lot of prep for these tests. The prep includes practice tests, online exercises, and paper/pencil practice. There's a lot of support available during the practice too as we work with students to clean up small misconceptions and inaccuracies. In a sense, we're helping to solidify math paths in ways that are memorable and useful.
One path that's challenging for students it the the paths related to problems such as this one: 12.45 X 1000. Since students have been practicing traditional multiplication as well as multiplication by powers of ten, they forget they can simply solve this problem by moving the number ahead rather than completing the algorithm. Some face challenge when they see problems such as 200 X 10 since they forget that they can simply place the zeroes at the end, then multiply 1 X 2. It's challenging for young children to learn many ways to solve a problem, and then choose the most efficient strategy--that takes practice, conversation, and support.
These tests also test memory. Some students seem to see a problem type once and remember it, and others need lots and lots of repetition. Or could it be that those students who see it once had a lot more repetition before fifth grade with similar topics through play, practice, and conversation at school and at home and others did not. That's why I think that it's very important for parents to understand the impact of playing with blocks, shapes, legos and more hands-on math-related toys from an early age in order to build positive math proficiency later on.
Today students will continue to practice. I'll continue to answer questions and support their efforts. Tomorrow they'll take a big test, then next week they'll take three more tests. I believe there's one more test that they'll take sometime in the next two weeks too. Then we'll move on to our STEAM and climate change projects that integrate math in multiple ways. Onward.
