Mental Math Grade 6 Teacher's Guide

expect that these students know their facts. However, if other students only
completed some of these facts and got many of those correct, you wouldn’t
know how long they spent on each question and you wouldn’t have the
information you need to assess the outcome. You could use these sheets
in alternative ways, however.
For example:
• Ask students to quickly circle the facts which they think are “hard” for
them and just complete the others. This type of self assessment can
provide teachers with valuable information about each student’s level of
confidence and perceived mastery.
• Ask students to circle and complete only the facts for which a specific
strategy would be useful. For example, circle and complete all the
“double-plus-1" facts.
• Ask them to circle all the “make ten” facts and draw a box around all
“two-apart” facts. This type of activity provides students with the
important practice in strategy selection and allows the teacher to assess
whether or not students recognize situations for which a particular
strategy works.
Parents and Guardians:
Partners in Developing Mental Math Skills
Parents and guardians are valuable partners in reinforcing the strategies
you are developing in school. You should help parents understand the
importance of these strategies in the overall development of their children’s
mathematical thinking, and encourage them to have their children do
mental computation in natural situations at home and out in the community.
Through various forms of communication, you should keep parents abreast
of the strategies you are teaching and the types of mental computations
they should expect their children to be able to do.
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