Multiplication Facts

Hi Marybeth,

I'm at home now, but taught fifth grade for seven years before being a mom. Memorizing the facts can be so easy for some and such a chore for others. Good for you for trying to help her nail them down. She'll get them, it just might take some time. I'd suggest taking the pressure off and begin by focusing on what she does know.

You could make a list of all the individual tables and check off the ones that she knows by heart (the 1s, then 10s, then 5s). You can find out which ones she knows by using flash cards or making a practice sheet. I've done it with kids that we make flash cards of all of them and then create 3 piles: "mastered", "working on", "to learn". As cards get moved from pile to pile, celebrate in a way that is meaningful for your daughter. Part of the battle might be confidence.

I'd then have her work on 2s, 4s and 8s, though only 3 or 4 facts at once until she knows them and can add them to her "mastered" list. 3s, 6s, and 9s can be grouped as well. Once she knows a fact one way, point out that it counts as 2 (3x4 is also in the 4s as 4x3).

Once you have the 3 or 4 individual facts that you are working on, each night I would have her sit in a quiet place with a sheet of paper with 5 columns. (This should be the same place every night - her brain will associate the place with learning). Have her write the full fact in the first column "3*4=12". She should look at the fact and say it aloud. Cover the fact with another piece of paper or fold the paper to hide the fact. Then she should close her eyes and picture the fact and say it again with her eyes closed. Then she opens her eyes and writes it again in the second column. Repeat this saying, picturing, writing process for all 5 columns for each of the facts. Then have her tell you the facts or you quiz her. This whole process shouldn't take more than 10 or 15 minutes maximum.

The research that I know about has shown that to move something from short term memory to long term you need short bouts of repetition separated by longer periods. So if you were to do this 5 nights a week with a few of the same facts, she should be able to memorize them. This method also taps into different ways of learning which helps too. It worked for my fifth graders so I hope it helps! Good luck!

-L.

Have you Quia flash cards (http://www.quia.com/jfc/66145.html). The ones you know, you eliminate and the ones you don't, you look at the answer, then click "try again later." You end up down to the last few "hard ones." My kids are doing them once a day, going through them quickly and stopping before they get frustrated. Each day there are fewer they get stuck on. Good luck. J. (-:

Hello, I had a hard time myself with math when I was young. Have you tried to find number tunes by School House Rock? I hear them on the kids channel on my satalite radio, so they must be out there somewhere to buy. They are easy to sing and remember and I know for sure they sing about 3 and 9 multiplication tables. Good luck and keep going at it...It will come!
N. E
Spfd, Mass

You may want to try "Brain Gym" (braingym.org) it works with easy exercises to help the brain connect areas that might not be working as efficiently as they could/should be.
Good Luck!

Dear Marybeth,

Memorizing is important but it won't help if your daughter doesn't understand the abstract concept behind the facts.

Your daughter may be like me. I am very visual and was having a lot of problems around your daughter's age with math which is all about abstraction. My mother was a Montessori teacher for 20 years. She decided to set up an afternoon math class with other kids using the Montessori method. I ended up taking advanced calculus in High School. My guess is that she understands addition in a practical way but hasn't yet abstracted it. She will probably also have problems with more advanced concepts like division and fractions if she can't take that very important step.

If you can't find an Montessori math class or teacher to tutor your daughter, you can try to help your daughter visualize the multiplication table using beads and wire. You can also buy the teaching materials online...

The idea is to make sections of beads that each have 1, then 2, then 3 ... up to ten beads clustered together. Each number is represented in different color beads. Then you link them up into a longer chain that shows what happens is you take 3 strands of 6 beads and 6 strands of 3 beads = They should be the same length.
Use beads that are all the same size and you'll need to make the spaces the same length too...

This is a super condensed explanation and I am not even going into the theory behind it...

Here are some links that I found that I thought might help:
http://www.edvid.com/math.asp

http://www.shillermath.com/sm/home.php?src=index.htm

Materials:
Complete multiplication set:
http://www.montessorioutlet.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=...#
Bead samples:
http://www.montessorioutlet.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=...#
And:
http://www.montessorioutlet.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=...#

I hope this helps,
A.

I had the same problem as a kid. Anyway I went on the have no math problems in later life. The things I did to get around it were to learn a few tricks that I could do real fast in my head to get the answer so I didn't have to memorize. There is the 9 trick - the digits in all the products add up to 9 and the first digit is one less than the thing you are multiplying 9 by. 2s you just add fast, same for 4s and 8s - I got real quick in my head and still do that today ( for example "seven and seven is 14, 14 and 14 28") Fives are also easy to just add fast. After all those tricks there are just a few sevens to memorize. Maybe some of these things will help your daughter. Certainly being able to memorize multiplication tables has very little to do with ability to understand mathematical concepts - so once she gets past the basic annoying part math gets quite enjoyable - or at least I really liked algebra, geometry, and in grad school statistics.

Times Tables the Fun Way: Book for Kids: A Picture Method of Learning the Multiplication Facts is a GREAT book for kids that have a hard time learning multiplication tables using funny little stories and pictures that get the kids to remember them. Highly suggest getting that book!

Also, teaching her to skip count sometimes helps as well...counting by 3's, 4's etc.... As many fun activities to get her to use the tables works for a lot of kids as simply memorizing them tends to be too abstract of a concept and won't stick to memory as if you were using them frequently in a relaxed and fun way. If a child feels rushed or timed into remembering something, they'll blank out everytime (all people tend to do that), so remind her to take a breath, say the problem to herself and relax. Go through all the tables and cross off all the ones she knows well...she'll be surprised how many she does know, then focus on the ones that trip her up.

Hi Marybeth,

I am a special ed. teacher in a elementary school and I work with lots of students to help them learn their multiplication facts. Practice does make perfect in this matter, but you want the child to experience success in order to build up her confidence and avoid math anxiety. Have you tried a tape or CD that sings the facts? There are many available in a variety of music styles, such as rock & roll, rap and country & western. There's a great teacher suppply store in Dracut on Broadway Road called The Book Vendor and I'm sure you could find one there, as well as other ways to study the facts such as the triangular flash cards and workbooks for quick practice.

Good luck with this and I hope your daughter is successful and confident with her facts.
Take care,
D.

Lots of great ideas from other mamas! Try taking a deck of cards and removing the face cards, unless you want to replace the letters with numbers. This game works with 3 people. Two get to be the thinkers and one is the decider. Each thinker takes a card and puts it facing out against their forehead so the other person can see it, but neither get to look at their own card. The third person reports out what the product of the two numbers is, and the thinkers have to figure out what their own number is. The thinkers are practicing division, but the decider is practicing multiplication. It's probably good to have your daughter play both roles so that she gets to manipulate the tables forwards and backwards. Good luck!

I am assuming that you have tried math computer programs? The multi sensory approach helped us a lot. You could also try using an empty egg carton to show her what multiplication looks like for instance 1x1 put one bean in one of the holes then she would see that is one.Since the tables ususally go up to 12 this may work to help her visualize.

The boys did some things with typing on the computer math games. Something about moving the fingers helped with math and spelling.

Also, using different colors to write with may help.

I hope this makes sense and that something helped. Best of luck on the math. That is a tough subject.

Oops I almost forgot singing them. I think schoolhouse rock did something on this years ago.

Dear Marybeth,
I'm no expert, but I know that as with anything else, kids all learn math at different points in their lives. Everyone's brain developes differently. Math was always hard for me as a kid too. It didn't really click until I was in college! I scraped through school with mediocre grades, tutors and lots of tearful nights at home struggling with homework. I laid off math in my first three years of school until my senior year when I felt I needed to balance out my 4 other art history/art classes with something mathematical. I took algebra 101. I was very nervous about it - even though it was a fundamentals class. I aced it. It all just came to me like it was a natural part of my language. Somewhere, in those years of neglecting the math world, my brain finaly got it's "game sense" for math. You can't force your daughter to learn her facts. And she may not "get it" for another year or so. It's just her individual development calendar. One day, all of a sudden, it will click for her. Until then, what to do? How to avoid all those tearful evenings or uncomfortable moments at school? That part I don't know. I think, if it were my daughter, I would explain to her that it will come to her. Encourage her by talking about the subjects she DOES excel at.
Best of luck to you both. Hang in there. It will come.

Added later: Now that I've posted this and read some of the OTHER responses...their responses really are much better. Much better advice!

How does you daughter learn best? She may need to experience the concept of multiplication in other ways. . ..through song, through writing, touching and seeing concretely using some sort of physical manipulative.

As some one who was never good at rote memorization that my suggestion. I wish some one had tryied different methods for me.

www.songsforteaching.com
look at this website that provides lyrics and sells the music that teachers use to get the kids learning. Also, do you have an iPod? Download some learning songs onto a cd and let her listen while your in the car, painting, or doing puzzles.

My step daughter had the same exact problem. We made up a song about the facts and to this day she remembers them on call. We also made up a little dance, make it fun and they will remember.
Good luck!

I can't promise this will work but I know it will definitley help. Try sticking to one family of facts at a time. Make some flash cards that stick with just the family of numbers. So 1x1 1x2 1x3 1x4 etc. up to...1x12. Do this with every fact to 12x12.Put the answers on the back. Start with 1s, then 10s, then 5s, then 2s, then 11s since those are the easiest and after that do the rest in any order. YOu may want to show her the pattern of answers and have her try counting in that order as well. so for the fives, the answers will always be 5,10,15,20,25, 30, 35, 40 etc. Practice the flash cards for 5 or 10 minutes a night, show her the card and have her give the answer. If it takes too long give her the answer while looking at the card and have her say it three times...then try timing her with a timer and every night record the time. Come up with some sort of incentive for daily/weekly improvement and then mastery. Do one set of facts for every two weeks nightly and I bet she improves. I teach 3rd grade and this is what I do in class with my students. It can't hurt to try it. Make it short and quick, not long and drawn out.

Have you tried making up a song and singing them? Such as the "schoolhouse rock" show? She might enjoy that and dancing to them at the same time.

Marybeth,

When I was that age I was never good in Math. Was going to Granby, MA schools at the time. I remember one year the math teacher I had split the classroom in half and we would have multiplication flash card races. Even if I wasnt quick at first I heard the anwers over and over again and it just stayed w/ me for years to come.
(out of school for 10+ years now... not so quick anymore but it worked when I needed it)

Hi Marybeth,

Some of my homeschooling friends like "Mathit" You can see it at lovetolearn.net
I don't know if you have ever considered homeschooling your dd, but if you do, a big benefit is she could learn without feeling "behind her class", and she would be able to get an excellent education in 3 hours or so a day, not all day at school then however much time you spend teaching her at home plus homework. Just a thought :) W. W

my daughter had the same problem. what i did was buy flash cards and put them on her wall beside her bed so she was constantley looking at them. she would wake up to them and go to sleep to them.the ones i got had the answers on the front so she had the answer without flipping them over.i lined them up in rows this helped her. a lot of times you get the flash cards and they sit there but with them on the wall she had no choice but to look at them every time she entered her bedroom.
good luck

Hi Marybeth,

The Schoolhouse Rock Series greatly helped my son learn the times tables. He watched them on VHS but I'm sure they now come in DVD or CD. They have an American History Series, Math, and English grammar. They are set to catchy songs which are easy to remember and quite catchy. I can still remember several of the songs myself!

I also did terrible with multiplication. I received the lowest flash card score in my 4th grade math class. I went on to finish 2 years of calculus & excel in math skills. I have to admit that rote memorization did not work for me & until this day I solve every multiplication problem (like Susan K. below). In my opinion, you are better off making sure she understands the principles behind multiplication rather than memorizing or being able to do it fast. The ability to DO math will take her much further than the ability to memorize it.

Hi

When I WAS a 10 year old girl I had a horrible time with multiplication myself! My mother and I made flash cards ourselves and she quized me at home. The cool part for ME was that these "quiz sessions" were done alone with her. I have a younger sister that was always underfoot and wold be distracting so we went to Dennys or Grandmas kitchen to practice. I LIKED the cards because she let me decorate them myself.

I am 28 now and a mother, and to be honest I STILL sometimes use my fingers BUT I don't always:) However I ALWAYS get the right answer!

My advice is the same as some others on there so I apologize for the repeat, but what worked for us was putting the facts to a song. Even something simple like the ABC tune. Okay, maybe it sounds childish but it cracks them up! I started this with the addition facts then continued even with division facts! My oldest has ADD so I often have to make things "entertaining" in order for him to grasp things. I also used these cute CD's from School Specialty Publishing. They're very catchy tunes and cute games to help them memorize. Good Luck!

Hello
I actually have a 12 year old daughter who also had the similar problem. What I rewarded her with prizes when she got them right, and recorded her when she said her facts so she could realize which ones she was struggling with.
I have a problem though. My child is addicted to the computer. What do I do?

as much as the teachers hate it, rote learning does work. have her write her facts down over and over and she will eventually get it. good luck

I know this will sound silly, but make a song out of it and have her stand up and sing. The doctor told me that the music and language and math parts of the brain a located differently. The music area has a wonderful little memory bank of its own. I have used this theory for college tests and my kids for highschool. It works. make it jazzy and up beat!