QuickMathFacts Software - Children Learn Essential Math Facts at School and Home!
The unique philosophy in the design of QuickMathFacts is to provide a networked math facts program for the school environment, while also allowing the school to distribute a free version of the software for students to use at home. Both features are provided for a once yearly subscription price of $199 paid by the school, PTA, or other booster organization to benefit the entire school community.
Once the software is purchased by the school, that school can provide the home downloadable version of the software as a link from the school's website so that all children from the school may use the program at home free of charge.
For a limited time, home users may also download the QuickMathFacts Home Version from this web page - Click "Download or Update" below.
Why QuickMathFacts? Download or Update QuickMathFacts Features
Teachers frequently use timed tests to assess math fact knowledge. However, paper and pencil tests take up a lot of class time and can hold back students who complete tests early.
With QuickMathFacts on the school computer network, a teacher can send students to the computer at any time to complete an assigned test on a specific set of math facts (for example, multiplication tables from 1s up to 9s) and look at the scores later after all students have had an opportunity to test.
Student performance data can be exported and charted in Excel or Access, thus giving teachers accurate performance statistics and avoiding the need to manually grade timed tests. Students who need extra practice can be brought up to speed with homework assigned by the teacher, without holding up the rest of the class.
If a group of children is tested at the same time in a classroom or resource room, the "leaderboard" feature automatically updates scores as children repeat tests, giving the teacher a dynamic window of the progress of the entire class.
Virtual classrooms can also be created on the network so that a child can sign in to a specific class on any school computer, making it easy for a teacher to monitor his or her own students.
Schools licensing the software also have the unique opportunity to request additional features or routines at no additional cost. Our staff provides full programming support and is willing to consider such requests for enhancements and develop them at no charge.
Of course all software updates are included with the license fee and schools with current subscriptions are notified via email if an update is available so that it can be downloaded.
Parents may download QuickMathFacts from their school's website once that school has purchased a license.
If you are a parent and like the opportunity QuickMathFacts presents to help all the children achieve success in math, please let your school know about the program and our licensing arrangement. If you prefer, you may also contact us with your school's name, address, and the name of a contact person, and we will write to them directly and tell them about QuickMathFacts. The software may also be purchased by the PTA or other booster organization on behalf of a school.
In a school using QuickMathFacts, homework practice can be assigned by a teacher and a child can easily manage his own practice on a home computer, building his skills and confidence on a daily basis. Students can therefore easily practice their math facts on their own without begging Mom or Dad to find some spare time to play math games or show flash cards, so this works well for busy parents who prefer to supervise their children's homework rather than do it with them. QuickMathFacts runs even on older computers, and does not require an active internet connection after initial installation.
DID YOU KNOW ..
The National
Council of Teachers of Mathematics says that
Tom
Loveless, Director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings
Institution in Washington DC says that
The US
Department of Education is concerned that
Success with higher level math depends on a fundamental grasp of the
basics in the early grades.
QuickMathFacts is a no-nonsense approach to learning the essential math facts. Regular use results in a steady improvement in recall of math facts, replacing the need to compute an arithmetic relationship mentally each time it comes up in a math problem. Children who do not know their math facts quickly fall behind when they are taught long division, simplifying fractions, factoring, and pre-algebra, and are unable to determine whether an answer achieved by using a calculator "looks right" or not.
The program is appropriate for children aged 6 through 12, but can also be used for remedial help in older children who did not develop these essential skills earlier. For an article explaining the benefits of memorizing math facts, click here.
The gimmick-free, non-video-game approach of QuickMathFacts limits the distractions presented by other math software products, which are not helpful for longer term retention of math facts. Children enjoy doing "real" work on the computer and do not need to have everything presented to them by cartoon characters to "make learning fun". Instead, the steady progress they achieve with regular practice builds confidence and helps them keep up with math at school without falling behind or feeling "stupid". Studies have recently shown that "educational" software based on a video game type of routine is not effective for learning. The increase in self esteem resulting from truly knowing the math facts is a far bigger reward for a child than any transient success in a game.
Most web-based math fact practice games present problems one by one and there are internet server delays before the answer is checked, and some even require finding the answer in a grid and clicking on it, so any "timed test" is not an accurate picture of the child's speed of recall. QuickMathFacts, on the other hand, runs in real time on the computer and there are no delays. It can therefore be used to run accurately timed tests on specific sets of facts (e.g. multiplication tables), which allows the child's ACTUAL PROGRESS to be charted and real improvements over time seen clearly to build confidence.
The charting feature of QuickMathFacts is very attractive for children, who enjoy seeing and managing their own progress, and this motivates them to get higher and higher scores.
For more information on the benefits of regular practice with math facts (also called number facts or maths facts), click here.
Click here for user testimonials.
NETWORK VERSION FOR SCHOOLS - 30 DAY FREE TRIAL
If you are the school network administrator, and you want to install one copy of QuickMathFacts for the entire school to use via the network, click on the link below.
Install QuickMathFactsNetwork for Installation on a Network To download or update to the current version, RUN or OPEN this Link.
For pricing, see Subscription Information.
FREE HOME VERSION FOR PARENTS AND STUDENTS
Install QuickMathFacts for Installation at Home To download or update to the current version, RUN or OPEN this Link.
SOFTWARE SAFETY
When you install QuickMathFacts or any of our products, you can be assured that our products contain no viruses that can harm your computer. If during the installation process you receive messages from Microsoft or other companies which frighten you, please CLICK HERE FOR OUR STATEMENT ON SECURITY.
Our installation pop-up looks like this:
Simply click on the SETUP button to install QuickMathFacts in the \NAYLOR folder of your computer. If you wish to remove QuickMathFacts, all you have to do is REMOVE the \NAYLOR folder from your computer.
Notes on Quick Math Facts Features
(NOTE - see the Online User Guide for more detail on how to use the program)
Figure 1 - Each student signs in so that scores can be stored for each student
Figure 2 - The TEST display
After selecting the set of problems to be worked using the Tables feature, which allows the user to define the precise rows of facts to be tested and the column to go up to, the Test feature can be selected. The example above shows a test in progress after the user chose to test on all addition facts from row 1 to row 9, up to a maximum of +9.
Arithmetic problems are presented in a random order and only numeric entry keys are accepted. Down the left side column, the correct answers to incorrectly answered problems will appear. This display lets a casual observer know which problems are harder for the students. The red ?? characters in the body of the table indicate a problem incorrectly answered. Incorrectly answered math facts are repeated. Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, or Division sets of problems can be selected so testing is very customizable.
As an alternative to the Test feature, the Teach feature can be selected for children who do not yet know their math facts. Selecting Teach instead of Test presents the problems randomly but then flashes up the answer for a second, allowing the child to observe this and then experience typing in the correct answer. In this way, the child builds his keyboarding skills and gains speed in typing the numbers, but he also experiences seeing the whole arithmetic problem and its solution so he can learn the facts.
Teach also presents a hint for working problems of each type. For addition facts only, this includes a number line showing the two numbers to be added in the form of blocks. The number line is labelled at 10 and 20 so a child can easily see the answer in relation to 10. For example, the problem 4 + 9 = ? is presented as a block of 9, followed by a block of 4, showing that the sum of these is 3 block units past the 10, therefore the child can visualize that the answer is 13. The blocks are presented with the larger number followed by the smaller number.
Figure 3 - Day by day a student's progress is tracked
A QMF score takes into account the number of Math Facts answered correctly and the amount of time taken to complete the exercise. This score along with other parameters stored during each test is charted and can be exported to Access or Excel, which should be especially useful for teachers wishing to chart the progress of all students in a class. (Other Admin features are also provided for monitoring group progress, including setting up virtual classrooms on the school network to separate out subsets of students for testing or monitoring).
To help motivate a child to improve scores, we have set bronze, silver and gold achievement levels for the tests, and these levels are indicated by lines on the chart at QMF scores of 30, 60 and 90 respectively. The bars on the chart also show these colors to indicate the level at which the child is performing. If a child is not yet at the bronze level, his scores show up in blue on the chart. Scores obtained using the Teach function, described above, show on the chart in red, because these are not a true test of the child's knowledge. Higher scores can be achieved on smaller groups of facts, but a new chart is displayed for each set of problems tested. The example above shows a progress chart for the set of multiplication problems from row 1 up to row 9, up to a maximum of x9. The student showed rapid progress after using the software for only a few weeks, and he maintained his proficiency on subsequent testing. Once learned, math fact knowledge is usually retained well and only occasional "top-up" practice is required. After mastering either addition or multiplication facts, children also benefit from practicing with the inverse operations of subtraction and division.
You will quickly notice that your children are excited that their scores continue to trend upward, and this motivates them to continue to retake the tests. Each time a test is taken, the child will almost unconsciously remember more of the numbers and the ways in which they are related. You will then notice that when asked for facts such as "What is 8 times 6?", a child will be able to recall the answers more quickly than by counting up by 6's or by using some similar technique. Experienced educators know the value of timed testing for encouraging math fact proficiency.
Comments or questions? Please contact us at mng at quickreckoning dot com.