Recommendations for Use with First Grade Students

To help first graders succeed with MathFactLab, we suggest the following:

• Teacher familiarity with differentiation tools: Our default settings may not always be ideal for first graders, so teachers and instructional coaches should be familiar with the tools available to adjust difficulty levels, fluency rates, and activity visibility.
• Active monitoring and support: Young students benefit from close supervision as they work through activities and assessments.
• Basic math foundations: Students should already have a basic understanding of addition and subtraction and plenty of experience solving single-digit problems using manipulatives.
• Students have already had ample practice solving single-digit addition and subtraction problems with manipulatives
• Students are familiar with at least ten frames. To keep things simple for our youngest students, by default, students in first grade practice basic addition and subtraction facts only with our ten frames activities: Ten Frames addition, Ten Frames subtraction, and Missing Addend. Activities using other models, such a number lines, number racks (Beads), and double-bar diagrams, are hidden by default.
• If young students are unable to complete the placement test in one sitting, they can take it in sections. They will be brought back to the section of the assessment where they left off the next time they log in.
• Developmentally appropriate fluency rate: First graders have a default fluency rate of 6 seconds per problem to allow additional time to respond.

Most often - and depending on your classroom - this means that first graders may not begin MathFactLab at the very start of the school year. Teachers generally find it helpful to wait until foundational skills and routines are in place. Based on teacher feedback, this usually results in starting MathFactLab about two to three months into the school year.