4.         Experiment with the FlashMaster using different settings until you have a sense for how your student will feel using it.

5.         The FlashMaster is not designed to explain the concepts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Depending on the student, a lot or a little time may need to be spent introducing these concepts.

6.         Students should normally record at least some of their results from each daily FlashMaster session—perhaps the 3 results they are most proud of. Most students can be taught to do this easily and quickly on a form like one of the two printable from this website. (One of the two alternative forms is designed for younger students who need more room to write.) Students tend to try harder when they know that at least some of their results will be recorded. Recording results also helps them appreciate the progress they are making over time. Most importantly, recording results in this manner makes it much easier for teachers or parents to monitor a student's efforts and progress and to recognize when the settings used by a student need to be adjusted because they are either too challenging or not challenging enough. (In the classroom, students can occasionally exchange FlashMasters and result forms to encourage accuracy. Teachers and parents should occasionally spot-check recordkeeping for accuracy.)

7.         Result forms should also be used for recording assignments. Often, teachers need tell their class only the identity and order of the day's learning activities. Students can then copy their individual settings for Levels, Time Limits, arithmetic operation, etc. from where those settings have been most recently recorded on their forms. Using result forms for assignments minimizes time needed for FlashMaster sessions thereby making more frequent sessions practical.

8.         When in doubt, make your student's first experiences with the FlashMaster too easy, too brief and too relaxed:
            a.            Give your student plenty of time to get used to the FlashMaster—perhaps some time "playing" with it in your absence.
            b.            Err on the side of having the student start by using: (1) a Level that is too easy; (2) a per-activity Time Limit that is too short; and (3) (if ready for the "Flashcards" activity) a per-problem Time Limit that is too long.

9.         Decide which arithmetic operation your student should focus on first. Perhaps, starting with addition will make sense. On the other hand, if your student is currently working on multiplication in school, you might want to start with it and focus on completely mastering addition (for example) only when your student is doing well in multiplication. In general, concentrate on one operation at a time.

TO DECIDE WHICH LEARNING ACTIVITIES A STUDENT SHOULD USE AND IN WHICH ORDER, CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:

10.       The untimed "Table: In Order" and "Table: No Order" activities and the timed "Practice" and "Special Problems" activities are primarily "instructional" in nature in that these four activities focus primarily on helping the student learn the answers to math fact problems.

11.       By contrast, the timed "Test" and "Flashcards" activities focus less on instruction and more on developing speed, maximizing the number of problems answered in a given period of time, and assessment or testing. For this reason, unlike the "Table", "Practice" and "Special Problems" activities, when a student answers a problem incorrectly, the "Test" and "Flashcards" activities do not spend time re-presenting the problem or prompting the student with the correct answer to a problem that has been missed twice in a row. Even more important, the "Test" and "Flashcards" activities display answered problems for a much shorter time than do the other four primarily-instructional activities and therefore present the next problem much more rapidly.

12.       The "Table: In Order" activity is primarily for introducing a new arithmetic "table". The "Table: No Order" activity is the next step for practicing a particular "table". Often the "Table" activities will be—or soon become—insufficiently challenging, especially the "Table: In Order" activity. They normally should be used only with beginning students or in remedial situations.

13.       Once a student is answering numerous problems in the "Practice" activity with a high rate of accuracy when the FlashMaster is set for a certain Level and arithmetic operation, the student should be directed to work with that Level and operation primarily, if not solely, in the "Test" and "Flashcards" activities for at least two reasons. First, the student will end up doing significantly more problems than in the "Practice" activity. Second, the more rapid presentation of problems in these two activities will tend to keep the student more engaged—even entertained. (The longer display of answered problems in the "Practice" activity is helpful to students in learning answers but can bore them and make them susceptible to distraction once they pretty much know the answers.)

14.       Once a student has attained a certain level of proficiency with a certain Level in a particular arithmetic operation, the "Flashcards" activity tends to be even more engaging and exciting than the "Test" activity since the "Flashcards" activity's per-problem Time Limit does not tolerate "dawdling" between problems whereas there is nothing inherent in the "Test" activity that motivates a student to answer problems quickly. In addition, the "Flashcards" activity is better at developing speed in the answering of difficult problems since its per-problem Time Limit does not allow a student to "make time" for difficult problems by answering easy problems quickly.

15.         Despite these advantages of the "Flashcards" activity, the "Test" activity may be useful to add variety to a daily FlashMaster session.

16.       Also, the "Test" activity most closely simulates paper speed tests that many schools give their students both for practice and for testing. Note that if the "Test" activity is used for testing and students turn off their FlashMasters' sound effects, then, as in the case of a paper test, students are not informed of their mistakes until the end of the test when their results are automatically displayed since, in the "Test" activity, the FlashMaster's display gives no visual indication as to whether or not a just-entered answer is correct.

17.       Although the "Test" activity most closely simulates paper speed tests, the "Flashcards" activity is even better at testing. This is because the per-problem Time Limit does not allow a student to make time for difficult problems by answering easy problems quickly. In order to do well in the "Flashcards" activity, the student needs to be able to answer each problem in time.

18.       Before using the "Flashcards" or the"Test" activity for a test, students should activate their FlashMasters' "Erase: Missed and "Entered" Problems" key. Then, after the test, the students should do at least one "Special Problems" activity since this will allow the students to: (1) see which problems they answered incorrectly in the test; (2) simultaneously practice just those problems in random order; and (3) be prompted with the correct answers to problems that they continue to answer incorrectly (at least twice in a row). Used in this fashion, the FlashMaster does everything that a paper test accomplishes, but (1) it does not waste paper, (2) it corrects the test automatically, and (3) in addition to identifying problems answered incorrectly, it allows each student to practice just those problems in random order and even prompts the student with the correct answer to a problem when the student continues to have difficulty with it.

19.       Although it may be appropriate for a student to use the "Flashcards" and perhaps also the "Test" activity to work on developing speed in one Level, in the same daily assignment it may also be appropriate for the student to be using the "Practice" activity to learn the answers to problems in a more difficult Level. Thus, for example, in the same day's assignment a student might use the "Practice" activity to learn answers to multiplication problems in Level 5 and the "Flashcards" and/or "Test" activity to develop speed in Level 4 of multiplication.

20.       The "Special Problems" activity should almost always be used at the end of a session to review problems "missed" in other activities during the session. This is not to say, however, that the "Special Problems" activity should not sometimes also be used for review earlier in a daily assignment. In fact, if each student has the student's own FlashMaster, the first exercise of a daily assignment should often be the "Special Problems" activity to review problems answered incorrectly during the previous day's assignment.

21.       The "Flashcards" activity's default number of 30 problems will be excessive in some situations. For example, the setting should normally be changed to 20 problems for second graders.

22.       In the case of the "Practice", "Test" or "Special Problems" activity, often one exercise with a very long per activity Time Limit is less effective than two exercises with significantly shorter per-activity Time Limits. For instance, in the case of fifth graders, two 75 second activities might well be more effective than a single activity of even 180 seconds.

23.       It's essential for teachers, themselves, to use the FlashMaster 10 to 15 minutes per day until they can score 90% much of the time in addition and multiplication when the FlashMaster is set for "Flashcards", the 1.6-second Time Limit, and Level 7 (which includes all the essential problems in each of these operations but is designed so that the more difficult a problem is, the more often it is presented). When teachers accomplish this, they will realize that most of their students can eventually do the same. In fact, some third graders master the 1.0-second Time Limit (touch typing with 8 fingers). On the other hand, on occasion fifth-grade teachers who presumably have not realized their own capabilities have not encouraged their students to try to master anything shorter than the 3 second Time Limit.