Websites for Developing Math Fact Mastery

Written by Donna Boucher

Donna has been a teacher, math instructional coach, interventionist, and curriculum coordinator. A frequent speaker at state and national conferences, she shares her love for math with a worldwide audience through her website, Math Coach’s Corner. Donna is also the co-author of Guided Math Workshop.
Grades 3-5 | Grades K-2 | Technology

Addition | Math Games | Multiplication

10 Comments

Let’s be clear—students need to have automaticity with their basic facts. What’s changed is the way we teach facts, moving away from rote memorization toward a strategy-based approach. Students learn unknown facts by reasoning about facts they know. For example, a student might not automatically know 6 + 7. If they know, however, that 6 + 6 is 12 then they can reason that 6 + 7 must be 13, because 6 + 7 is just one more than 6 + 6. Moving students from reasoning to mastery takes practice. Today, I have two free websites for developing math fact mastery.

  • XtraMath This free website uses pretests to determine students’ needs and then tracks student progress and adjusts their practice.  Parents receive weekly emails showing their child’s progress. There is also a premium version with more features as well as mobile apps.websites for math fact mastery
  • Arcademic Skillbuilders  This free website uses highly engaging video arcade-type games that kids will want to play.  Many of the games have settings that let kids focus on certain facts.  This site is constantly adding new games, and they now offer both iPhone and Droid apps (for a small charge).
    websites for math fact practice
Both are great options for use in the classroom or to share with your parents!

10 Comments

  1. Amy B
    Amy B on April 30, 2012 at 10:39 pm

    thank you for this post! We had factmaster, but the company shut it down right in the middle of the year and the kids are crushed!!!! I will look into these!!!!
    Amy Burton

    Reply
    • Donna Boucher
      Donna Boucher on May 1, 2012 at 1:49 am

      My kids LOVE Arcademics!

      Reply
  2. Amy
    Amy on May 1, 2012 at 10:45 am

    Thanks for the websites.

    Reply
  3. Ellen Adams
    Ellen Adams on May 1, 2012 at 10:37 pm

    We just played he arcademics jet ski game today. (the one that you have the screen shot of above) I have it and several other games linked to my smartboard calendar for May and the kids went absolutely nuts over it!

    Reply
    • Donna Boucher
      Donna Boucher on May 2, 2012 at 10:15 am

      I’ll bet they did! That would be awesome on a smartboard!

      Reply
  4. Holly
    Holly on May 13, 2012 at 2:45 am

    Wow! Thanks for the link! My kids will love this!
    Holly

    Reply
  5. Anonymous
    Anonymous on February 11, 2013 at 10:51 pm

    Thanks for the. Help

    Reply
    • Donna Boucher
      Donna Boucher on February 13, 2013 at 3:41 am

      My pleasure!

      Reply
  6. Beth
    Beth on February 26, 2023 at 5:55 pm

    My students detest Xtra Math. They do love 99 Math and the fact fluency part of Freckle. Thank you for all of your work with your blog and your products.

    Reply
    • Donna Boucher
      Donna Boucher on February 27, 2023 at 6:54 am

      Yep, it’s not the most engaging, but I love that it’s personalized. I alternate it with other sites and games.

      Reply

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