The Education Week Spotlight on Improving Math Fluency is a collection of articles hand-picked by editors for their insights on the importance of math fact fluency, the challenges students face with word problems, how teachers can optimize how they introduce math facts and better support students, how early math supports help vulnerable students,…

Flexible knowledge, knowing multiple approaches for solving problems, is a hallmark of expertise in mathematics. Frequently, the author writes, students memorize only one method of solving a certain kind of problem, without understanding what they are doing, why a given strategy works, and whether there are alternative solution methods. Comparison…