Three Steps Back

I have noticed a trend in the incoming crop of fifth students who enter my classroom each year. They do not know their multiplication facts and they can not divide. How do you quickly, and most efficiently catch up on what should have been done a year to two prior?

Ideas???

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Permalink Reply by Kim.R on February 7, 2010 at 12:34am

I have the same trouble. There are only about 4 kids in my year 5 who can do it and the rest are still doing repeated addition.
This year I am setting it for homework, just rote practice, encouraging parents to make sure they do it and I'm going to play the musical multiplication CDs every day, focusing on one number each week.
It makes the rest of maths so hard when they have to stop and count, or look it up on a chart.
My friend, a high school maths teacher is having the same problem, so its not just us.

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Permalink Reply by Patti Yohe on February 7, 2010 at 9:01am

I have the answer for multiplication facts! I am still looking for something to teach addition facts. First of all, I do not sell this software, I just found it on the internet when I was looking for some way to teach, not just test, multiplication facts. I am not sure if I can even say the program's name on this site, so if someone wants to know the name, let me know and we can figure out a way. The program has a FREE version that you or kids can download AND there is also a $40.00 version that has more scenes and better graphics that kids can purchase. The program ACTUALLY teaches the facts and is extremely repetitive until kids learn the facts. It starts off showing dots to count (like dice) in sets. So they learn that additioon and multiplication are related. The kids have to master 3-5 facts before moving on. Then they will have a new set of facts to learn AND have to practice the older sets. It keeps track of what facts the kids have mastered and periodically retests them.

Best program I have ever seen. Only problem is that is has so much graphics that our school computers can't handle it. The program freezes sometimes and only a few kids at a time can work on it. So I get most of the kids doing something else on the computer while only a few do the program. It is available as an online version too and teachers can see scores that kids get and can see improvement. Parents can download it at home too.

Let me know if anyone is interested and I can give you the website info. If anyone has an addition fact learning game, please let me know. I have tried power point flash cards, paper flash cards, videos, everything! Our middle and high school teachers are still having trouble with facts too.