Breaking apart an addend by place value is a powerful mental math strategy for adding numbers with two or more digits. Although this is similar to left-to-right addition, some students prefer it because only one addend is decomposed by place value, rather than both of them.

For example, to solve 43+35, we could first decompose the 35 into 30 and 5. We start by adding 43+30 to make 73, then the remaining 5 to make 78.

My Math Fact Philosophy

My resources are created with this philosophy in mind:

•Math should be taught using the Concrete-Representational-Abstract model.

•UNDERSTANDING math facts is more important than memorizing math facts. Conceptual understanding is the key to math fact fluency.

•Students must be able to visualize the math in order to really understand it.

•True math fact fluency is more than just speed and accuracy. It also includes flexibility, which is essential to true fluency.

•One of the best ways to build flexibility is by making connections and forming relationships between facts.