Every teacher’s pathway to the classroom is different. For Renee Haltom, her fifteen-year educational journey began with her daughter.
“I got into education when I found out I was pregnant. I wanted to be a part of my daughter’s education. Since then, I have taught lots of content areas and grade levels,” said Haltom. Currently teaching fifth-grade math in Newton Independent School District in Newton, Texas, Haltom has found her sweet spot with elementary math.
The importance of math fact fluency
“As I got more into the math world, I learned very quickly that fluency is very important,” said Haltom. “You can’t divide, you can’t double-digit multiply, you can’t do any of these things if you’re lost within the basic fact in the middle of the problem.”
Haltom has been using ExploreLearning Reflex in her classroom for the past years to help students learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division math facts. “Reflex is amazing. It really, really is a great gamified form to teach these kids,” said the teacher. Students in Haltom’s classroom achieve their Reflex Green Light—a measure of a successful day of math fact fluency practice—at least four days a week.
“We need these gamified things to keep them engaged, and this works,” said Haltom. “The kids genuinely like to play Reflex. They feel like they’re playing a game. It helps with their confidence. We do enough ‘drill-and-kill’ as far as programs that are skill-based just work, work, work, work, work. This is a break to them almost.”
Incorporating Reflex into daily instruction
The fifth-grade teacher sets the tone for math fact fluency and Reflex at the beginning of the school year. “At parent night, I tell parents that Reflex is the program we use and it really will help your kid be more successful in fifth-grade math if they are fluent. The sooner we get to 100% the better. You need that foundation of those math facts to be able to do all these other things that we do. Most of the time, parents get on board with that pretty easily.”
Throughout the year, Haltom regularly tracks students’ math fact fluency levels within Reflex and takes a fluency grade every six weeks. Reflex includes a variety of built-in individual and class-wide data reporting tools to monitor and celebrate progress. Haltom works with her students to achieve growth and improve fluency levels over each six-week period. “It’s really a push for them, and they do really well with it. They really like it.”
Measuring the impact of Reflex for an entire grade level
Haltom recently returned to school to get her Master’s degree in educational leadership, with the goal of eventually becoming an instructional coach for a math department. She graduated in December 2024 after completing a case study project with her school and grade level.
Real-life impact of Reflex on fifth-grade math achievement
The graduate-level research had to be for an area of high-need in Haltom’s district. After examining scores from the previous years to identify gaps, Haltom found students were lower in the areas of computation.
Her elementary school in Newton ISD is a Title I school, with students receiving free and reduced lunch and breakfast every day. “Everyone has free breakfast in the classroom. We have this little bit of time in the morning when it can get a little bit crazy,” said Haltom.
She used this time to her advantage and began infusing Reflex practice during breakfast time for a grade-wide fluency challenge. Students immediately logged on and completed game-based math practice to earn their Green Light while eating breakfast. “I got everybody on board for the grade level,” said Haltom.
After just three weeks, Haltom and her fifth-grade teammates saw incredible math fact fluency growth. “Between the beginning and the end, there was so much growth between the grade levels. Over 50% of kids had reached 100% [fluency] within those three weeks,” said Haltom.
“We take three interim exams a year. This one was really heavy on multiplication and division. My scores for that interim were probably the highest that any of my interims have been this year. Overall, there was growth within the first interim that I had comparing the certain TEKS to the ones we did after we implemented Reflex. And we still do it now.”
–Renee Haltom
“I saw increases on the interim we took after, and I can still see it now. They know their facts and it really, really helps them with these other skills within the class.”
Improving student confidence with Reflex
After the grade-level challenge, Haltom’s students receiving math remediation support were crowned the Reflex contest winners. “The class that won was my inclusion support class. They can do Reflex and feel successful,” said Haltom.
But the gains aren’t only with fact fluency skills. Haltom found that Reflex increased student confidence, specifically for students who had not experienced much success with math in the past, if ever. “Reflex has really helped some students who haven’t been successful with math. I live by this program. I think it’s a great gamified form of math facts and the kids really, really enjoy it.”
Since the initial research challenge, Haltom and her fifth-grade teaching partners have continued to use Reflex every morning. Colleagues who are new to teaching have also found success with Reflex thanks to its easy-to-implement nature and built-in monitoring tools.
“You pick your battles. That’s my battle. I will fight for fluency practice all the time, and I’ll make time for it in my classroom. Without it, you’re going to just be backtracking constantly.”
–Renee Haltom
Discovering Frax for fractions instruction
Fifth-grade math topics become more complex, particularly when it comes to teaching fractions.
Haltom first heard about ExploreLearning Frax at a leadership conference and it immediately caught her eye. Frax is a game-based program that helps students develop a foundational understanding of fractions in a galaxy-themed setting.
“I pushed for Frax at our school, and we got it added the next year. The kids love Frax also. I can’t wait for Sector 3,” said Haltom. “We had a Sector 1 poster and they would get to put their sticker up every time they did a mission.”
Throughout Frax, students progress through highly scaffolded missions grouped by Sectors on the Frax Galaxy Map. Completing Sector 1 before Sector 2 leads to more efficient and beneficial fractions instruction for teachers and students in the classroom. It’s recommended that teachers use Frax before a fractions unit to accelerate instruction and develop a class-wide understanding of fractions.
“I really liked the vocabulary of Frax. It matched a lot of what we were doing in the classroom. It was very aligned and I really, really liked it. It helped with a better foundation for students moving forward.”
–Renee Haltom
Inspired by student growth
At the end of the day, Haltom’s favorite part of teaching comes down to individual students and their unique progress. “My favorite part of my job is the end of the year. It’s not because it’s over, but because the kids get to see where they were and where they are now. Their knowledge and growth is what I enjoy the most about teaching.”
Haltom’s students enjoy monitoring their individual progress levels throughout the year with data folders. “Kids really enjoy tracking their stuff,” she said. Her students have dedicated Reflex and Frax data folder pages to track their math growth over time.
“That’s one of my favorite things. To talk with the kids at the end of the year and say, ‘See, you said you weren’t going to be able to do this stuff and look at you. You are doing it!’”
Listen to Renne Haltom’s full story!
