Mastery of Facts up to 20 in 1st grade: Two teachers, two ways of tea...

We report on two Austrian teachers whose teaching throughout the first school year was clearly centered on derived facts strategies. While basically following the same approach of guided discovery learning of non-counting strategies, both teachers differed distinctly in their views on the role of drill. In one classroom, where considerable efforts were made at strategy drill once such strategy had been established, there was a higher share of quick retrieval, whereas in the other more students resorted to derived facts strategies. At the end of the year, the share of students mastering facts in the number range up to 20 was remarkably high in both classes. We discuss both teaching concepts with a view to their suitability as a model for first grade instruction.