May I ask how she knows your daughter hasn't demonstrated her math facts? Is it through every day application or is it only on timed tests?
I had a nearly identical conversation with DS's teacher at the beginning of this year. After a lot of inquiry, her assumption was based entirely on him not passing his 100 problems in 5 minutes fact tests. He consistently did 85-90 problems with 100% accuracy but the school was expecting 95 to pass.
Timed tests can put a lot of pressure on gifted kids who are intense perfectionists. I discovered that DS was going back and erasing and re-writing numbers that he felt weren't totally legible. He also was finishing a row and checking his work. Finally, after observing one test by accident, I realized the teacher started counting down at 1 minute. She'd then say 45 seconds, 30 seconds, 15 seconds, HURRY UP HURRY UP! 10..9..8.. and so on.
I asked her to try once and reverse her test procedures. Give the kids the test, set the timer counting up, not down and leave them be. Have them record their time when they finish on the top of their paper. EVERY kid passed the fact test that week.
My long moral- sometimes the environment is the cause, not the facts :-)
Check this out too- "Faster Isn't Smarter"
http://mathsolutions.com/documents/9781935099031_message18.pdf
