Exciting news: IXL has just released the ultimate go-to spot to help students build the key skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Welcome to IXL’s Fluency Zone, an all-in-one hub dedicated to helping learners master math facts!
The Fluency Zone has a variety of activities to support every step of an IXLer’s math fact journey. One prime example is the new IXL Raceway, which hosts fast-paced math challenges that get learners solving as many problems as they can in one minute.
Developing confidence in basic math is critical to success in bigger challenges down the road, such as algebra. Let’s explore this space and see what it has to offer.
The Fluency Zone
You can find the Fluency Zone in the math section of the Learning tab. It’s also available on the math landing pages for grades 1-4, up in the top-right corner.
Each grade has its own Fluency Zone page with resources that are appropriate for students of that grade level. In the Fluency Zone, activities for different math operations (such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, or a combination of operations) are separated into their own tabs. Each tab is organized by different fact sets, so it’s easy to find all of the activities pertaining to, for example, adding within 10, or multiplying by 6 through 9.
Activities on each page are grouped by type. The different activities available are:
This mix of activities isn’t just for the sake of variety. Different kinds of activities are useful for learners with varying degrees of confidence in math facts. You can introduce brand-new concepts with videos, assign skills and worksheets to get students used to a fact set without time pressure, and then use timed Raceway challenges and games to encourage them to improve their solving speed.
IXL Raceway
The Raceway is a totally new kind of practice on IXL, and its challenges offer a fresh way to improve and measure math fluency.
Each challenge gives IXLers one minute to correctly solve as many problems as they can. As they answer questions, an animated background and sound effects simulate them zooming through a race, with options for both a traditional racetrack or a fanciful deep sea track! (The animation and sound can also be disabled, if desired.)
Each Raceway challenge has a goal score, and every time students reach this goal they collect a trophy. The Raceway also keeps track of learners’ personal high scores for each challenge and celebrates whenever they set new records, encouraging them to do better and better every race.
For teachers and parents, these challenges provide valuable data to track how students are progressing. The Raceway measures solving speed, accuracy, and growth. Teachers and parents can look at the Student Raceway Report to see where learners may need help, as well as cheer IXLers on when they make gains.
Your center for strong math skills
In the classroom, the Fluency Zone gives educators a complete toolkit for math facts. It makes it easy to introduce concepts, efficiently raise speed and accuracy, and reward students with fun and enriching activities.
At home, the Fluency Zone offers families a variety of quick, flexible activities that provide healthy screen time and fit into busy schedules. It gets learners excited to work on math and encourages them as they make progress, so they’re sure to be proud of their achievements.
Looking for even more math activities? Take a look at IXL’s math workbooks. These workbooks help students master math, providing helpful guidance and colorful visuals along the way. Plus, each workbook activity has an IXL skill ID to seamlessly connect offline and online learning.