Top 5 Tips on How to Help Students Learn Multiplication Facts
There is no way around it. The students have to practice, practice, practice. It is like riding a bike or learning how to swim. It is very difficult and scary to begin, there are falls and panicky times along the way, but once the skill is learned it becomes second nature. Whether it be flash cards, a computer game, or any other method, time has to be spent reviewing the facts.
I hope you enjoy the top 5 tips that I use to help my students master their multiplication facts.
1. Tricks and Mnemonic Devices
I’m sure many of you have seen the 9s trick before. It is an amazingly simple trick that all the student needs is his/her hands. Put your hands in front of you showing all ten fingers. Put the fifth finger down to represents 5 x 9. Take a look at the fingers before (4) and the fingers after (5). There is your answer 45! Try another one yourself. Put your 7th finger down. There should be 6 fingers before and three fingers after (63)! This works all the way up to 9 x 9! Nines will no longer be a problem for your children!
Another strategy I use with struggling students is repeated addition. This is a simple way to reinforce that multiplication is related to addition, a skill that all of them should have. Start off small with a problem like 2 + 2 + 2 = 6 which is the same as 2 x 3 = 6. If you get to a bigger problem such as 6 x 4, have them use the number that they can count easier with. So the problem would look like 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 = 24. When you are able to relate multiplication to addition it is a familiar concept that students are more comfortable with.
I also teach students to look for and understand patterns. When multiplying two even numbers together you will always get an even answer. When multiplying two odd number together, you will always get an odd answer. I also go over the 5s, that when multiplying by this number the answer will always end in a 5 or 0. When multiplying any number by two it simply doubles the bigger number. There are many other patterns out there to discover as well.
2. Games
Who doesn’t love to play games? I know my students love it when I announce we are going to play a game in math. One that I love to use is Multiplication War. This is like the regular War card game. Each players gets half the deck. But instead of the high card taking the cards when flipped up, the students have to multiply the two cards together! If there is a tie, then they put two cards down and flip the third up. The winner then gets all the cards. When we start playing this, I take out all the face cards. Each card represents it’s number and Aces = 1. I try to match students up based on the knowledge of their facts which makes the games more competitive. The students can either play until someone has all the cards, or for a time limit as well.
Computer Games
A few online games that are suitable and fun for our students. Here is a favorite website with lots of games to choose from: http://www.multiplication.com/games Our students also like this one as well: http://www.fun4thebrain.com/mult.html.
It is a great break for the students and makes learning the facts fun as well!
3. Multiplication Raps, songs, and Rhymes
Many of my students are in to rap music. Making up a multiplication rap is a fun way for students to remember the facts. If you can find a rhyme to use to help students learn the facts, I would definitely try it. Maybe even let them explore their creativity and make up their own!
4. Contests
After so many years of seeing students struggle, we developed some contests to try and inspire our classes to learn their facts. So we work on completing our banana split chart in order to have a real banana split party in the end! They really loved doing special class celebrations together to celebrate their achievements!
5. Real-Life Application
Tying real-life experiences to multiplication also helps the students understand why it is important to master the facts. I often use places that the students have gone to, and will go to in the future as examples. A great place to start is the grocery store. I talk about needing to buy 3 dozen eggs (3 x 12), two packs of gum with each pack having 6 ( 2 x 6), four twelve packs of soda (12 x 4) and so on. The students start to realize the importance. Then we start talking about electronics! This is where they sit up more in their chairs and the doodling stops. We talk about items that matter to them such as: iTunes, mp3, and video games. An example would be: John (insert name of student) wanted to buy three albums (insert popular bands) on iTunes that each cost $8, how much would he have to spend? It is amazing to see how students will work harder to figure out this type of problem. I have also used the topic of buying comic books or looking at collections (sports cards, stuffed animals…) and using multiplication for different scenarios as well. Making connections to their lives truly does make a difference!
I hope you were able to take at least one idea from this post to help!
This week our new story is Papa Tell Chita a Story! We will concentrate on a friendly letter in writing. Our grammar focus will be on adjectives. In math we will continue with fractions. For social studies, economics continues!
