Mental Math Grade 6 Teacher's Guide

A. Fact Learning – Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication
and Division
• Reviewing Facts and Fact Learning Strategies
By grade 6, it is expected that most students will have mastered their
addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. Nevertheless, there
may still be some students who do not have command of these important
number facts. For the teacher, that will mean going back to strategies at a
lower grade level to build success, and accelerating them vertically to help
students catch up. For example, if students don’t yet know the addition
facts, you can find the strategies for teaching them in the grade 2 mental
math book and grade 2 Curriculum Guide. The students, however, are
more intellectually mature, so you can immediately apply those same
strategies to tens, hundreds, and thousands, and to estimation of whole
numbers and decimal tenths, hundredths and thousandths. The fact
learning strategies introduced in previous grades are listed below.
A thinking strategy is a way of thinking that helps complete a fact
quickly. For a strategy to be a thinking strategy, it must be done
mentally and it must be efficient. Students who have mastered the
number facts no longer rely on thinking strategies to recall them.
Addition (grades 1-3)
a) Doubles Facts
b) Plus One Facts
c) Plus Two Facts (2-more-than facts)
d) Plus Three Facts
e) Near Doubles (1-apart facts)
f) Plus Zero Facts (no-change)
g) Doubles Plus 2 Facts (double in-between)
h) Make 10 Facts
I) Make 10 Extended (with a 7)
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