Math Fluency: It’s Not About Being Fast!

Submitted by Jannet Park – LS Math Specialist

Many of us can remember a specific math moment: the race against the clock. Maybe it was timed tests, a teacher cold-calling on you and expecting an immediate answer, or the panic that set in as all eyes turned your way. Your mind went blank, your heart sped up, and suddenly math felt much harder than it needed to be. For many of us, those experiences shaped what we came to believe “being good at math” looked like. Math felt less like thinking and more like performing.

So when families hear the word fluency, it’s understandable that we often associate it with smooth reading, quick answers, or memorized math facts. Many of us grew up equating fluency with speed. However, at DE’s lower school, math fluency means something a bit different and ultimately much more powerful.

Math fluency is about understanding numbers and using them flexibly. A fluent mathematician can choose a strategy that makes sense, explain their thinking, and arrive at an accurate answer with confidence. Over time, as understanding deepens, strategies often become more efficient and automatic. In other words, speed can develop, but it’s the result of fluency, not the definition of it.

This is why memorizing facts alone isn’t always helpful, especially early on. When children are asked to memorize before they understand how numbers work together, math can start to feel stressful or fragile. If a fact is forgotten, students may hesitate, shut down, or feel like they’re “bad at math,” even when they’re not.

When fluency is built through understanding, the experience looks very different. Students learn how numbers relate to one another and how known facts can help them solve new problems. For example, a student who understands how to make ten and break numbers apart might think about 7 + 9 as 6 + 1 + 9 to make 16, and then use that same thinking to solve 70 + 90 as 160. They aren’t just remembering answers! Our DE students are developing tools they can use again and again.

We encourage our students to use fingers, and drawings, or models as they work. These are not signs that a child is behind. They are developmentally appropriate and concrete representations that support thinking and help students make sense of numbers. Just as training wheels help children learn to ride a bike, these strategies help students build the foundational skills they need for strong mental math later on.

Fluent mathematicians are not necessarily the fastest ones. Instead, being able to approach a problem in more than one way is one of the clearest signs of true fluency. As teachers and parents alike continue to value effort, curiosity, and sense-making over speed, we send the important message that math is something you think deeply about, not something you rush through. By redefining what it means to be a fluent mathematician, we help build confidence, joy, and a lasting belief that math is something we all can do.