multiplication facts serves as a foundation for application of mathematical concepts later in education (As cited by Codding, Chan-Iannetta, Palmer, & Lukito, 2009 in Smith, Marchand-Martella, & Martella, 2011). Despite the many reasons to improve fluency in basic multiplication facts, investigations of different curriculum programs to improve multiplication automaticity are ongoing. A substantial amount of time, effort, and money is put into mathematics education each year because mathematics is one of the core academic subjects taught in the United States. Fluency of basic mathematical facts is important in daily life along with later math education and reaching automaticity in basic multiplication facts is the first step to becoming a successful mathematician. Without mastery of basic multiplication facts, students spend so much time trying to perform a range of complex tasks to reach the correct answer that it often leads to errors in procedure (Woodward, 2006). Lack of fluency can impact the ability for students to acquire more complex skills and conceptual understanding by increasing the amount of time consumed in learning (As cited by Wong & Evans, 2007 in Rave & Golightly, 2014). It is important to ensure practice time at the elementary level because students who have not achieved fluent automaticity of basic facts by the end of fifth grade, will not have frequent, structured, opportunities to adequately develop that automaticity in later grades (Steel & Funnell, 2001).

In Rocket Math, students learn two facts and their reverses on each worksheet in a carefully controlled sequence which enables mastery at an individualized pace. Cooke and colleagues found evidence in practicing math facts to automaticity, “suggesting that greater fluency can be achieved when the instructional load is limited to only a few new facts interspersed with a review of other fluent facts (1993, p. 222). By focusing on a very small set of new target facts, no more than two facts and their reversals, instruction on this target set can continue until the student can retrieve the answers to automaticity. One strength of the Rocket Math program is the use of immediate peer provided feedback. When students do not know an answer in three seconds or less, they are given the answer by their peer. By doing this, the student is reminded of the answer and then gets more opportunities to practice “remembering” the fact’s answer. This technique is effective for two reasons. The time allowed for students to answer the fact ensures that they are using memory retrieval rather than using strategies to figure out the answers. Second, if the students fail to remember the fact, they are immediately told the answer and asked to repeat it.(http://www.rocketmath.com/p/about-the-program.html)  It becomes clear to  students that the point of the task is to “remember” the answers rather than continue to derive them over and over. Rocket Math allows students to establish a mastery learning paradigm, where small sets of facts are learned to high levels of mastery, before adding any more facts to be learned (Crawford, 2000). The learning is occurring during the “practice” time. Correspondingly because the timed tests are only over the facts already brought to mastery, students are quite successful. Students see their success in small increments because they are able to track their own progress. When students are seeing progress towards their goal, they are establishing a direction for their learning (Marzano, 2001). Under these circumstances, students are successful and enjoy graphing their progress on regular timed tests. One minute timings then assess when students are ready to move to the next set of facts. (http://www.rocketmath.com/p/about-the-program.html) Goal checking is also a process of self assessment and self evaluation, which creates more confidence and an improvement of attitude (Bystrom, 2010).

Building mathematical fluency is important for many reasons. First, mastering basic multiplication facts is essential to higher order skills, such as problems that are completed in algebra and calculus, which require automatic recall of basic facts. Second, when students build multiplication fluency, they are more likely to feel comfortable participating in class discussions about mathematics because they are more motivated and put forth more effort. Third, students who are able to respond automatically typically have less anxiety and are able to maintain the skills longer. The use of Rocket Math will work to build mathematical fluency at an individualized pace and therefore will reduce anxiety in students when it comes to mathematics. Lastly, students who are not fluent in basic multiplication skills tend to rely on time consuming strategies that prevent them from completing problems in an efficient manner (Smith et. al, 2011). While contemporary methods of math instruction have begun to de-emphasize the importance of fluency and have focused more on problem solving and concept development, there is a lack of focus on memorization of basic multiplication facts (Smith et. al, 2011). Unfortunately, this lack of focus on multiplication memorization through fluency building in general education has led to negative effects on students’ mathematical success in higher education (Smith et. al, 2011).