How can I help my son to learn his multiplication facts?
I have an 11-year-old son who can’t seem to learn his multiplication tables. He is struggling in math. He is a smart kid and this is very frustrating. Does anyone have any ideas or tricks to help him? Thank you!
In most cases, 2x, 5x,and 10x are picked up easily enough so hopefully you don’t need to work too much on those.
As for the rest, it’s some boring drilling and a few tricks to spice things up a bit!
Try here:
http://www.multiplication.com/teach.htm
They have the basic methodology, the "take away the fear" philosophy and a bag of tricks to be used as needed.
Whatever you do, try to make sure your son doesn’t get paranoid about the tables. More kids fail math through brain paralysis based on fear than through any other reason. Find the things he knows and re-test them regularly so he gets lots of positive reinforcement all the time he’s doing the new and unfamiliar stuff. Celebrate EVERY small improvement and put the failures down to "Irrelevant brain farts" or something to make him discount them with a laugh. Motivate, reinforce and celebrate your way through this.
If it gets desperately bad and he really can’t manage the tables, take comfort in the fact that some really brilliant mathematicians didn’t ever master them either. Maths is about finding patterns, not about counting in straight lines.
But save the "It doesn’t matter" line for the VERY last resort.
February 8th, 2010 at 1:36 am
Make it fun and use easy examples with, perhaps sweets.
Put a pile of sweets on a tray. Select two and put them on one side, pick another two and put them next to the first pile. Then ask how many sweets he can see. He’ll say four, so you explain that 2 x 2 = 4. Increase the number of sweets and piles to 3 x 3 = 9 and so on. This is very elementary, but it shows the idea visually. Talk him through the tables and get him to write them down
1 x 1 = 1
2 x 2 = 4
3 x 3 = 9
4 x 4 = 16 and so on. Then get him to mix and match like:-
3 x 4 = 12
7 x 8 = 56 and so on.
If he’s really struggling ask his teacher if there’s any help or aids available or extra curriculum teaching.
My daughter was at University and couldn’t understand fractions. I showed her by cutting a carrot in half, then each half into smaller pieces explaining what proportion each piece was to the whole carrot. Suddenly it clicked and she passed her exam.
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February 8th, 2010 at 2:19 am
In most cases, 2x, 5x,and 10x are picked up easily enough so hopefully you don’t need to work too much on those.
As for the rest, it’s some boring drilling and a few tricks to spice things up a bit!
Try here:
http://www.multiplication.com/teach.htm
They have the basic methodology, the "take away the fear" philosophy and a bag of tricks to be used as needed.
Whatever you do, try to make sure your son doesn’t get paranoid about the tables. More kids fail math through brain paralysis based on fear than through any other reason. Find the things he knows and re-test them regularly so he gets lots of positive reinforcement all the time he’s doing the new and unfamiliar stuff. Celebrate EVERY small improvement and put the failures down to "Irrelevant brain farts" or something to make him discount them with a laugh. Motivate, reinforce and celebrate your way through this.
If it gets desperately bad and he really can’t manage the tables, take comfort in the fact that some really brilliant mathematicians didn’t ever master them either. Maths is about finding patterns, not about counting in straight lines.
But save the "It doesn’t matter" line for the VERY last resort.
References :
http://www.multiplication.com/teach.htm
February 8th, 2010 at 3:07 am
it depends on how he memorises his facts. I used to struggle with them, but now it’s alright.
You could buy him a book, on multiplication tables- like the ones with really bold handwriting and stand out- for some people if they look at it again and again they’ll just learn it.
You could buy a tape with a song, with the the tables on it, and he could listen to it- that normally helps.
Once he learns them, he should just do lots of multiplication sums- with maths you can’t learn by reading- you have to learn by doing sums.
hope this helps and good luck.
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February 8th, 2010 at 3:52 am
Take him to kumon it really helps i used to go and now im top of my class before i was really dumb at maths and english
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February 8th, 2010 at 4:05 am
simple first I was taught my 0s 0 always equals 0 then 1s 1 is always the same number you multiplied by 2s I already was counting by 2 before then move to 5 then 10 most kids pick it up. then when you teac him the 9s trick with your hands hard to explain here put search on youtube it should tell you. Then on your 3 4 6 7 8 11 12 make them write them down then say them then do the easiest one first. If all else try to get them to use hands on boys learn 75 percent better when using hands on.
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My 12 year old self
February 8th, 2010 at 4:29 am
i try to write the answers your problem in my blog http://www.mystructuredsettlement.co.cc you can see any problem in my blog.
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