Addressing the needs of low-achieving mathematics students: helping students 'trust their heads'

This paper reports on part of a national numeracy intervention and research program. The program has the generic title QuickSmart because it aims to teach students how to become quick (and accurate) in response speed and smart in strategy use. This intervention seeks to improve automaticity in students' responses which is operationalised as students' fluency and facility with basic academic facts and procedures in mathematics. Improved automaticity can be achieved by reducing working-memory demands on routine tasks, thereby freeing cognitive resources for higher-order processing including the fluent use of mathematical procedures and competent problem solving.