Teachley Numbers is a suite of math games developed with support from the Institute of Education Sciences, part of the US Department of Education. Instead of using drills and flashcards, these games use visual models of addition and multiplication strategies to promote fact fluency and deep conceptual understanding.
In this study, K-4th grade students were randomly assigned to play Teachley’s strategy-focused games or drill-based games, for 4 weeks. The 3rd and 4th grade Teachley students showed a much deeper understanding of the distributive property and were more likely to use sophisticated strategies to solve problems.
The K-4th grade students also significantly improved their fact fluency more playing Teachley. Visual tools and games can encourage students to use efficient, sophisticated strategies to solve problems.