The Bare Facts About Learning the Facts
Monday November 10, 2008
The multiplication facts that is. Key to students committing the multiplication facts to memory is having an approach that works. Being random too early doesn't work! Key steps to ensuring students commit the multiplication facts to memory are:
- Begin with the 2's, 5,s and 10s. Why? Because students skip count at an early age and these facts are often the easiets for them to learn. Once these are committed to memory, move on.
- Don't teach the fact randomly. Now that they know the 2's, 5's and 10's, move to the 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 5x5, 6x6, 7x7 - or a number by its own. Why? Because now you have given students a strategy, if they know one fact from each fact family, they can figure out the others. For instance, I know that 7x7 is 49 so 7x8 must be 7 more than 49.
- Now that the above facts are known, it is time to move to a fact family - one at a time. Begin with the 4 x tables, when they're committed to memory, move to the 6 times tables and continue the pattern.
- And finally, work with the multiplication facts at least 5 days a week orally for at least 5 minutes daily. When all the facts are committed to memory, then practice randomly.
Comments
In your article you state that students can develop understanding from multiplying a number by itself, and develop strategies such as “I know that 7×7 is 49 so 7×8 must be 8 more than 49.” Surely an oversight.
Just a comment to the comment… 7 x 8 would be 7, not 8 more than 49!!! 7 x 8 = 56.
Thanks for going beyond rote memorization for students. They need to use number sense to understand multiplication, as well as learn to apply it to math tasks away from the 100 problem drills.
Also important to mention commutative rule to kids. I’ve had plenty who “know” 6 x 9, but not 9 x 6 because the 9’s are so hard!
Despite our progressive attempts at making all learning a user-friendly, fuzzy process. The root of the learning tree still is somewhat dependent on memorization, like it or not. E.G.,
until later in life, no student really “understands” the alphabet, he or she merely memorizes it for future use and evolutionary development. Learning to count is really memorization of a sequence whose true and real importance is revealed ans applied later, right? Memorization is still important. Factual recall is also. Both are key ingredients for extrapolation in the never-ending learning process.
Thank you so much for the link to the multiplication worksheets. In our math department meeting last week, our principal had told us she wanted us to start giving timed tests and try to get the parents involved. I teach seventh grade and am finding it very disturbing that students are coming to me at this point in their education and don’t have those basic math facts memorized. I agree with James in that some things simply must be memorized, but I appreciate the original post giving ideas as how to go about presenting these to students. I think these tips will help the parents help their children.