• Category: addition and subtraction, addition and subtraction facts, Five Times Five Is Not Ten, learning math facts, math facts, multiplication, multiplication facts, Strategies to teach addition facts, Two Plus Two Is Not Five
• Published Dated: October 30, 2016
• Written by: Susan

It’s about that time of the school year when teachers and parents have been meeting or are getting ready to have conferences, and report cards come home. If your child is in elementary school, you may hear, “Please make sure your child memorizes the math facts.” Depending on the grade, that could mean addition and subtraction facts or multiplication facts, or even both.

So what do you do if you want to make sure your child learns to memorize math facts, or if your child has been struggling with memorizing math facts since even last school year, and just cannot seem to retain the answers? Does your child know the answers one day, but not the next week?

Have you used flash cards? Drill books? Timed tests?

Would you like to try a more structured and proven-to-work program?

First, use flash cards to see which facts are already memorized. Separate the math facts that he or she knows from the ones that cannot be answered correctly and quickly. Do not allow time for counting the answers. (5+5 is 10 is a known answer verses 5+5 is 1,2,3,4,5 …. 6,7,8,9,10.) Tell your child you want to know which answers he or she knows. However, if you child uses a strategy, for example and answers 3+3 is 6, so 7 for 3+4, that is fine.
Keep a record of the known or memorized answers. (Or, use the Baseline Recorder from one of my workbooks.)

Then give your child a 3 by 5 card for each of those known facts and keep them in a pack. The addition and subtraction cards should be together in one pack. If you are working with multiplication facts, those go in a separate pack.

On the next day, check these known facts. Your child ought to still know them, if not, take them out of the pack. Then, teach one set of new facts. (If you are using one of my workbooks, by using the Record-Keeping Checklist, you will see which facts to teach next, and you will have the practice pages to assign. Each of the facts has a strategy or trick to help your child learn to remember the answer.)

For more information, you can request my free tips to teach math facts, or purchase the books, which have the how-to sections on teaching math facts.