Mental Math for early childhood

About Us

The US Mental Math Federation (USMMF) is a not-for-profit organization and was officially established in March 2006. USMMF is dedicated to promote and encourage effective learning and teaching methods of mental math for early childhood and beyond.

USMMF regulates the standards for mental math education, defines the levels of difficulty, administrates certification examinations, and conducts competitions.

The missions of USMMF include setting up appraisal standards for certifications, administrating certification exams for teachers and students, sharing resources among all interested parties, and conducting national and world scale activities including competitions to encourage active learning in mental math and broaden visions for students around the world.

We provide mental math leadership and promote excellence in math learning. We

  • champion high-quality mental math education
  • advocate equity for every contestant
  • develop school leaders and other educational team members specialized in mental math
  • establish standards that quantify the mental math skills
  • build a solid foundation for lifelong mental math skills
  • evaluate program and policy effectiveness
  • share best practices, and
  • carry out programs with the least in-person administrative burden and cost

We carry our promise to greatly exceed customers' expectations. We

  • listen to those we serve in order to improve our operations and adapt to changing needs
  • forge partnerships to improve our services
  • value each members' contribution to achieving this mission

The USMMF conducts and sponsors the "Speedy Math Competition" once a year. The objectives of the event are to encourage youngsters to unleash their potential in speed calculation, promote love of math, broaden math learners' visions, and demonstrate good sportsmanship through the competition. Since the event is open to the general public, the participants are from diversified ethnicity including Asian, Hispanic, Black, Native American, and White.

The target students of the competition are primarily between 5 and 12 years old, in addition, we also accept participation from grown-ups in a special "open" group. In order to make this event a positive experience for participants, all participants will get awards and prizes. Top winners will be awarded with exceptional trophies. We want to encourage students to do their best and meet the challenges. Meanwhile, students will gain test taking experience and stress management skills during the test. All participants will be tested the four operations in math: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Sample test sheets are made available on the USMMF web site. Most of the participants will be excited and eager to try out the sample test before the competition. Only three minutes are given to each test. That way, contestants know that they have to be accurate and fast to get good scores. In other words, the good scores require the combination of constant practice and high focus skill to accomplish. The contestants will experience and learn to manage the stress during the test. Since this is a rare chance for young children to knock down the walls and compare themselves with people in other sides of the world, they can broaden their visions in terms of the academic accomplishment and seek for improvement. Since the result will be ranked, contestants will learn to pacify the excitement or disappointment after the event. We observed that although the contestants were from different background and previously did not know each other, they learned not to influence other people when the competition was ongoing. They talked and made friends to each other during the recess. They applauded to those who were on the stage and presented with awards. One key factor for them to enjoy this event is that everyone is a winner. We tried very hard to solicit sponsorship from varied sources including companies, organizations, and governments so that all participants are awarded with recognitions of honor and bags of prizes. If you wish to make a contribution to the Speedy Math Competition or the organization, please click here.

USMMF also works with mental math associations around the world in coordinating international events. As a not-for-profit membership organization, the USMMF applies its revenue to services and programs benefiting its members and mental math in America. The office can be reached by phone at 602-753-8766. email is: [email protected]. Click here to contact us.