Math

Parents/Guardians,

I had the pleasure of being the math specialist/coach for Barberton Primary School for five years before returning to the classroom in 2026. During this time, I had the opportunity to expand my own knowledge about best practices when it comes to math teaching and learning, and I got to share that with many other teachers at BPS. Now that I'm back in the classroom, I'm very eager to be able to apply what I've learned to a class of my own! I'll be updating you throughout the year as to what we're doing in math and, most importantly, why we're doing it the way we are.

With that, I at least wanted to share some general thoughts and information about some broad topics when it comes to 2nd grade math. Thank you for taking the time to read.

Math Facts

Basic math fact knowledge is crucial, but the days of memorizing facts and timed tests belong in the past. It's important that students are developing strategies so that they can work to recall their math facts with automaticity. In order to do this, we'll be working on building fluency through a combination of accuracy, efficiency, and flexibility.

We will be engaging in a variety of activities, discussions, and games throughout the year to help students build their number sense. We'll be learning how to manipulate numbers and use them to our advantage when it comes to solving our basic facts. We ultimately want our math facts to be automatic, yes, but we don't want them simply memorized. In other words, answers to basic math facts should come quickly because we've had enough practice through meaningful, engaging activities.

I will be assessing students' math fact fluency levels throughout the year by using an interview-based system called Math Running Records. Once levels are determined, students will practice their math facts by participating in a variety of games and activities that targets their individual levels. Students will be able to move to a new level of fluency before another Math Running Record is given if they are demonstrating accuracy, efficiency, and flexibility in their current level.

Math Fact Fluency Progression

The Math Running Record process follows a research-based progression of math facts in addition and subtraction. If a student demonstrates mastery of all levels shown below, focus will shift to using strategies for solving multi-digit addition and subtraction problems. See more about multi-digit math in the next section below.

ADDITION

Adding 0 to a number
Adding 1 to a number
Adding within 5
Adding within 10
Adding numbers that make 10
Adding 10 to a number
Adding doubles facts
Adding doubles +1 facts
Adding doubles +2 facts
Adding 7, 8, or 9 to a number
Adding within 20 (larger numbers)

SUBTRACTION

Subtracting 0 from a number
Subtracting 1 from a number
Subtracting a number from itself
Subtracting within and from 5
Subtracting within 10
Subtracting from 10
Subtracting differences of 1 or 2
Subtracting 10 from a teen number
Subtracting 1s from a teen number
Subtracting half facts
Subtracting by bridging 10
Subtracting within 20

kindergarten skills // 1st grade skills // 2nd grade skills

Multi-Digit Math

We won't be getting to multi-digit math until sometime in the middle of the school year, but I feel it's important to include this information here all year round anyway.

When you and I were in the 2nd grade classroom as students, chances are we learned how to add and subtract multi-digit numbers in one primary way--the traditional algorithms for addition and subtraction. By that I mean we stacked the numbers above one another by place value, started on the far right in the ones place, and worked our way to the left, column-by-column, following a series of steps and rules to memorize in order to solve. Maybe there were some rhymes and chants thrown in there, too, to try and help us get through from start to finish.

This may have gotten some to the correct answer, but experiencing math in this way only isn't learning true math. It's learning how to mimic a series of steps and regurgitate them back without understanding how math truly works.

While traditional algorithms are still beneficial to know, we'll be spending much of our time focusing on more efficient ways for solving math problems. We'll be discovering strategies for how to move and manipulate numbers so they can work to our advantage. In other words, we'll be learning how to use math the way it's meant to be used--as a true, flexible language.

I tell students every year that the reason I like math so much is because there are many ways to solve a problem. We're going to uncover many of these ways through building numerical relationships, and by discovering that true math isn't a set of rules and steps to memorize, but rather it's thinking, reasoning, and understanding how numbers truly work.

"When fluent in a language, you have a lot of options for how you might say something; when not fluent, you have one way determined by the words you know." -- Jennifer Bay-Williams and John SanGiovanni, 2021

"Algorithms are amazing human achievements, but they actually trap students into using less-sophisticated reasoning than the problems are intended to develop." -- Pam Harris

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