Dec 11, 2024
Rocket Math is back for all elementary students at Central Decatur!
Like last year, Central Decatur is using the program called Rocket Math with all students in grades kindergarten through sixth. Students keep working until they have mastered all math facts. A fact is mastered when it can be answered instantly, without any pause. Rocket Math is unique because it teaches only 2 facts and their reverses on each page. For example 6×3, 3×6, 4×5 and 5×4. The program allows each child to go at his or her own pace, taking as many days to master those two facts as needed. Students are given an opportunity daily to show they have learned a set of facts by passing a test. Once students “pass” a set of facts, they color in the letter for that set on their “Rocket Chart.”
You can help your child progress and learn faster by practicing
at home. Any day your child does not pass a set of facts, they will have
that day’s practice sheet to bring home as homework. It will help a great
deal if you will practice with your child for five minutes with that sheet.
Recommended Practice Routine:
● Your child sits with the practice sheet in front of them. The
problems for practice go in a circle around the page border and should not have the answers written in. The outside facts are the practice facts.
● Your child reads each fact aloud and says the answer (from memory).
● If you hear either the slightest hesitation or an error on one of the facts, give your child some extra practice on that fact by immediately giving your child the answer and asking them to repeat the problem and the answer again three times.
● Your child then backs up three problems and begins again.
● If there is no hesitation or mistake when the problem is reached this time, be sure to praise your child and let them continue. Go once around the outside of the page. This should only take about five minutes.
● Your child will be able to explain this procedure to you because it is the same routine used in math class.
Learning all the facts in an operation is a lot of work, but future success in math is
dependent upon knowing facts so well that the answers come automatically without much thinking. Thank you so much for your support of this critical learning goal.