Question: My third-grader is having trouble memorizing the multiplication tables. We use flash cards to help her, but she still can't give the answers as quickly as the teacher wants. Are there any techniques that we can use to help her learn these facts? - Need Math Help
Answer: You are on the right track. Flash cards are a good way to help children commit the multiplication facts to memory. First of all, you need to go through the cards and take out the 1s, the 2s and the 5s, unless she has trouble multiplying with these numbers. Then, start to work only with the flash cards between 3 x 3 and 6 x 6.
Shuffle the flash cards and have your daughter select the top one. If she doesn't know that fact, have her use this strategy to get the answer:
- Write the problem down; for example: 3 x 6.
- Draw three horizontal lines.
- Draw six vertical lines through the horizontal lines.
- Count the number of intersections to get the answer: 18.
Your daughter will tire of using this strategy and begin to memorize the facts. Do not consider a fact learned until she can give an answer in three seconds or less. Once she has learned the facts through 6 x 6, continue to add more facts. For a confidence booster, have her end and/or begin a session working with well-known facts.
Once your daughter has made strides in learning the facts, introduce a game to reinforce her skills and make multiplication fun. Make several game boards that have nine squares like a tic-tac-toe game. In each square, place an answer to a multiplication fact your child knows.
To play the game, shuffle the multiplication flash cards and have the first player draw a card from the top of the deck. If there is an answer to the fact on the player's game board, a counter is placed over the answer. If there is no answer, the card goes on the bottom of the deck, and play goes to another player. Players alternate turns until one has completely covered a game board. Then the players should select new game boards in order to work with different combinations of facts.