Homeschooling Moms
Do you have your child memorize math facts? I think I asked this question a looooong time ago, but I'm still torn on the matter. Honestly, I don't even have all my math facts memorized, and if you ask me to count by 6's, or 7's, or 8's, etc, I will stumble over it. Is it enough to just know how to come up with the answer? Why do they have to actually have them memorized? My oldest is in private school and he's been struggling over learning to count by 3s. I understand that it helps when he's trying to figure out what 3 x 4 is. But I hate them SO much and he does too. I'm just trying to decide if it's something I'll continue when he's home for 3rd grade next year, and if it's something I'll do with my soon to be 1st grader whose homeschooled.
Replies
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Nope, I think having the knowledge to figure them out is enough. -
Last year our oldest son was taking FOREVER to do his math. He was scoring low on his facts tests and I knew that this was what was slowing him down. We used xtramath.org to help speed him up and this year we have learned counting songs using a CD from Classical Conversations. You could probably find a lot of them on youtube.
If you want your children only to have basic math knowledge, then working on math facts might not be important, but if you want them to be skillful at math and keep their future math doors open, then it might be a good idea to practice them.
Shinichi Suzuki once said, "Ability equals knowledge plus ten thousand repetitions." -
I think memorization is very important. Our minds will fill up with stuff no matter what... may as well make it good, useful stuff. :) It will totally help come multiplication time! -
No, it is not enough to be able to come up with the answer. If you do this, it will take a long, long time for your child to finish his math homework when the concepts start getting more complex. He will hate math.
Repetition and speed drills just for a few minutes a day have done wonders for my dd.
I love Christian Light Education math, BTW.
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I think it is important. I never memorized my math facts and as I advanced through courses; the math became very hard and time consuming. I hated math. I sucked at it.
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My son has always been very good with math. When I started him on a 2nd grade workbook he started hating it, because it would take him sooo long to finish one page. So I started doing flash cards for a while, instead of the workbook. Now that he has a lot of facts memorized, he speeds through a worksheet in no time.
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Games!
abcya.com (3rd grade) there is Division Drag race and multiplication grand prix. Sum Drop, math man addition, math man subtraction.
My boys have gotten so much faster with their facts, but I'm not the bad guy making them memorize. They actually ASK to play those games. And they have gotten very fast at dividing things up. There are only so many strawberries in the carton, so they have gotten good at dividing by 3 and 5 (there are 3 of them, there are 5 in the family).
When they get into the higher math they will be better off if they are fast with their basic facts.
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no, but as you work with Math you will eventually learn them. I taught my kids how to mentally break down so they can do it in their head easily. I never taught them to memorize 6 + 8=14. I instead I taught them how to add two to 8 and take 2 from 6. Adding 10 + 4 is much easier. When it came to multiplying my son would figure most in his head even the harder ones. (sometimes he was off by a couple of numbers but that was ok. He was thinking through them logically) I encouraged him to play with math and have fun. As he had fun playing with numbers he learned his tables. It is taking longer but he is having fun. Math should never be memorized. It used be used and understood. It is more important to teach logic than math facts. I highly recommend the books secrets of mental math. The most important thing we can do for kids is to teach them how to have fun with math. There is more benefit from doing a couple of problems with joy than 30 drill and kill problems. (not my words) I just gave my son a multiplication table chart and let him have fun with it. I also would have him test more than I tested him. He would ask me what 7X8 was and then I would tell him as fast as I could. He was learning without any of the pressure of having to know the answer. Sometimes I would answer incorrectly to see if he could catch me. Make if fun and a game and they will learn them much faster. Don't ever take the fun out of math in order to learn facts.
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I'm right there with you! I'm not sure what to do either. My oldest (10yrs) struggles with them. She knows how to multiply but to quiz her she gets frustrated.