Three Fluency Categories

October 9, 2019

Any effective fluency activity falls into one of three categories:

Longitudinal
Review
Anticipatory

The teacher might not be familiar with any of the terms but they always have a clear understanding as to why they are selecting and delivering each exercise. Some drills classify neatly into a single descriptor, while others overlap two or all three of the groups.

Longitudinal fluency solidifies foundational skills that students learned in previous grades, and will need in the present and future school years. This long-term skill building practice may or may not be necessary for the lesson it precedes, e.g.

Adding and subtracting within ten is a first grade standard, but many students will continue struggling with these facts if their second and even third grade teachers don’t review them.
Middle and late elementary school teachers might need to build in regular addition and subtraction algorithm reviews, even though students were supposed to master them in second grade.
Skip counting by single-digit multiples helps students attain times tables fluency in third grade, but it also serves as a strategy to simplify fractions, convert mixed numbers to improper fractions, and find percentage of a quantity in later grades.

Drills tend to be brief (one minute or less), delivered daily, and are designed to produce small incremental gains. Only after routinely practicing them for several months can students and teachers reflect on their work and realize the progress they’ve made.*

Prior to starting the school year, the teacher researches their incoming students’ collective skill gaps. Once identified, they develop a plan to plug the holes. This includes re-teaching strategies, selecting a method(s) for practicing, and setting short and long-term goals (see table on right).

Review fluency provides a focused summary of the previous lesson(s) content, activating students’ prior knowledge and reinforcing what was recently learned.

The review is condensed into choral responses and/or white board exchanges lasting two to three minutes.

Teachers often use this Cliff Note fluency in lieu of reviewing homework, especially when the upcoming lesson builds on the previous day’s content (see table above).

Anticipatory fluency bolsters previously learned skills so they can be easily applied to upcoming lessons. One to two minute whiteboard exchanges and/or choral responses are catalysts for these drills, which begin easy and - over the course of several days or weeks - become increasingly more complex.

Through intensive curriculum study and reflecting on previous years’ lesson plans, the expert teacher is familiar with upcoming units and chapters long before they’re taught. This allows them to troubleshoot potentially challenging lessons. After identifying them, instructors deconstruct the concept to figure out what makes them difficult. They often find that students are required to synthesize multiple skills and concepts to succeed, but no single part of the task is complicated.

Adhering to the philosophy Isolate skills when needing concentration and creativity the most, they create a plan so their students are prepared for higher order thinking by the time the lesson is taught.

In the example on the right, the forward-looking teacher might conclude that the Distributive Property of Multiplication task has several complicated formats that are unfamiliar or brand new to the students.

Still, they’re confident that most, or all, of their students can find missing parts of number bonds and solve simple missing addend and factor problems.

The real challenge is connecting the number bond to a missing addend problem, to parenthetical multiplication sentences, back to a new addition sentence, all the while using twos, which is an abstract units.

So, two weeks before delivering this lesson, the teacher plans the following anticipatory whiteboard exchanges, devoting 30 seconds to one minute for each:

I.

II.

III.

Each day of the first week they change numbers and units to build student confidence.

Then, during the five lessons that precede the Distributive Property of Multiplication lesson, they weave the three formats together (see image IV).

By the day of the lesson, the students have mastered each of the basic formats and can connect between them.

They are now prepared for added complexities in which they’re required to think flexibly and apply understandings of several different formats to solve problems (see image V).

For other examples, see table below:

IV.

V.

*Basketball coaches often use a similar approach to improve their players’ shooting skill. At the beginning of each practice, the athletes hone their form, starting close to the basket using only one hand. The routine focuses them on their balance, release, and follow-through. After making two shots in a row from a short distance, they take a step back and repeat the process until they’ve reached their maximum shooting range. The coach doesn’t expect their players to show instant improvement, but over the course of a season, perfect daily practice habits enhance their accuracy.

Three Fluency Categories

October 9, 2019

Any effective fluency activity falls into one of three categories:

Longitudinal

Review

Anticipatory

The teacher might not be familiar with any of the terms but they always have a clear understanding as to why they are selecting and delivering each exercise. Some drills classify neatly into a single descriptor, while others overlap two or all three of the groups.

Longitudinal fluency solidifies foundational skills that students learned in previous grades, and will need in the present and future school years. This long-term skill building practice may or may not be necessary for the lesson it precedes, e.g.

Adding and subtracting within ten is a first grade standard, but many students will continue struggling with these facts if their second and even third grade teachers don’t review them.

Middle and late elementary school teachers might need to build in regular addition and subtraction algorithm reviews, even though students were supposed to master them in second grade.

Skip counting by single-digit multiples helps students attain times tables fluency in third grade, but it also serves as a strategy to simplify fractions, convert mixed numbers to improper fractions, and find percentage of a quantity in later grades.

Drills tend to be brief (one minute or less), delivered daily, and are designed to produce small incremental gains. Only after routinely practicing them for several months can students and teachers reflect on their work and realize the progress they’ve made.*

Prior to starting the school year, the teacher researches their incoming students’ collective skill gaps. Once identified, they develop a plan to plug the holes. This includes re-teaching strategies, selecting a method(s) for practicing, and setting short and long-term goals (see table on right).

Review fluency provides a focused summary of the previous lesson(s) content, activating students’ prior knowledge and reinforcing what was recently learned.

The review is condensed into choral responses and/or white board exchanges lasting two to three minutes.

Teachers often use this Cliff Note fluency in lieu of reviewing homework, especially when the upcoming lesson builds on the previous day’s content (see table above).

Adhering to the philosophy Isolate skills when needing concentration and creativity the most, they create a plan so their students are prepared for higher order thinking by the time the lesson is taught.

In the example on the right, the forward-looking teacher might conclude that the Distributive Property of Multiplication task has several complicated formats that are unfamiliar or brand new to the students.

Still, they’re confident that most, or all, of their students can find missing parts of number bonds and solve simple missing addend and factor problems.

The real challenge is connecting the number bond to a missing addend problem, to parenthetical multiplication sentences, back to a new addition sentence, all the while using twos, which is an abstract units.

So, two weeks before delivering this lesson, the teacher plans the following anticipatory whiteboard exchanges, devoting 30 seconds to one minute for each:

I.

II.

III.

Each day of the first week they change numbers and units to build student confidence.

Then, during the five lessons that precede the Distributive Property of Multiplication lesson, they weave the three formats together (see image IV).

By the day of the lesson, the students have mastered each of the basic formats and can connect between them.

They are now prepared for added complexities in which they’re required to think flexibly and apply understandings of several different formats to solve problems (see image V).

For other examples, see table below:

IV.

V.