What are some guidelines for drill?

Edward C. Rathmell
University of Northern Iowa

Contrary to what some people believe, drill or the use of timed tests does not need to cause children harm. Granted, if drill is used too soon, and children do not have an efficient way to thinking to solve the problems for which they are expected to answer quickly, drill will not help and it may cause undue stress. There is no benefit for children under those conditions. However, if drill is appropriately delayed, children can benefit by becoming more fluent. Drill can increase the speed at which students respond and it can increase the accuracy of the responses.

Do not use drill on a group of basic facts until after the children are able to use an efficient thinking strategy to solve those basic facts. Then the drill will increase the speed and accuracy of the use of that efficient thinking. Without that ability to figure out the problems quickly, children are forced to guess or to simply not respond. Neither of these possibilities is consistent with the goal of helping children make sense of mathematics.

Organizing practice in clusters of basic facts, that can easily be solved with a given thinking strategy, enables children to have success with that cluster of facts as they practice using that thinking strategy. After children learn a new thinking strategy, they can benefit from practice on those facts that can easily be solved by using that strategy.

Two other conditions help children master the basic facts. First, practice a few minutes each day or every other day. Second, introduce only a few new facts at a time. It has been shown to be very effective to introduce only about 10-15 new facts at a time and then provide about two weeks of practice with those before introducing other new facts.

Some guidelines for drill might include:

• Delay drill (timed tests) for a group of facts until students have an efficient way to think about those facts.
• Provide activities where every student has some success.
• Keep the drill periods very brief, perhaps only a few seconds at time.
• Work on a few facts at a time.

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