If you can find a source of free elementary math worksheets on the Internet or through another source, they could prove invaluable for ideas. Often elementary teachers have years of teaching experience under their belt and lots of great ideas that they’d like to share but don’t exactly know how to go about doing that. Making their own worksheets is a great way to share this knowledge, and the free elementary math worksheets they can come up with are invaluable tools for other educators if you feel like sharing them. The ones that teachers make themselves are especially insightful since these teachers have the necessary hands on experience.

Like anything else, these free elementary math worksheets need to follow a few guidelines that will ensure the final product is a useful educational tool. First off you’ll need to decide on the size of the worksheet. When you design these worksheets ask yourself what the child can do with them. In other words, are these free elementary math worksheets that you’ve made up too big for an elementary pupil? Can he or she really manage all the pages by himself? Some kids really like it when you give them a mark or comment for every page. Ask yourself if you’ve got the time for that kind of individual attention with the worksheet you’ve designed. Other children will want you to be there all the time to comment on every pen mark they make. Either way, you’ll need to take this consideration into account when you design free elementary worksheets.

Some teachers may want to incorporate reading out loud together from these worksheets and there are several ways to do this. Choral reading is reading out loud at the same time. There are three goods reasons to follow this method. First, the children will feel special because they get to read right along with the teacher. If the child isn’t a confident or fluent reader, they may feel more confident when they hear you voice alongside theirs, and when the child isn’t sure of a word or the pronunciation of a numeral, they can follow the lead you establish.

Alternated reading is another option. This is where the children and the teacher switch back and forth with the lion’s share of the reading done by the teacher at first but gradually the student’s taking over more and more of the workload. Of course with free elementary math worksheets the amount of reading that you’d like to include in the worksheet will vary. Wherever possible, it’s important to get the child to do the entire free elementary math worksheet with as little interference from you as possible. In that way, the student’s confidence and autonomy increase. Once again, the idea here is to facilitate the child’s development and not necessarily interfere with it.

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