Math Timed Tests

Why do we do the math speedway AND the five-minute timed test? Some have asked this question.

I will occasionally run into middle and high school math teachers; whenever I do I ask what they would like incoming students to know. One of the biggest, consistent complaints I hear is that students don't come them with automaticity of their basic math facts.

Our math speedway is a three or four day per week one-minute test with 10 problems. It covers basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Ideally, students move forward each time they take their speedway test.

The five minute timed test requires students to move through 100 basic math facts with 100% accuracy. Students do addition and subtraction in the beginning of the year each year as a baseline assessment. For the rest of the year, they only compete against their own score from the previous week. Steady progress in memorizing the facts is expected. As students move throughout the school year they have the opportunity to progress into more challenging five minute assessments.

These assessments can be fun and the students look forward to them (That is also why everyone starts at zero for the addition speedway.) Most importantly, they take very little time each week out of the school day but the results are seen in our daily math lessons as well as simple fact recall.