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kbfsc
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| Posted: Oct 15 2009 at 5:04pm | IP Logged
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Am I opening a can of worms? (I searched the forum but didn't find any threads relating to this subject specifically.)
In our home school community I have found every conceivable opinion on whether or not children should memorize math facts - all from folks I respect and enjoy. Some drill, drill, drill. Others wouldn't dream of it.
I'm torn. It pertains most pressingly to my second-grade son who is an apprehensive learner in general and particularly vexed by math. I'm wondering if there is any wisdom out there that might help me make up my mind.
Thank you!
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ekbell
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| Posted: Oct 15 2009 at 6:42pm | IP Logged
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I don't do formal but they do have math computer games and they do sums as part of regular math.
I've allowed the use of manipulatives and hand creation of 'cheat sheets' for as long as the child wishes.
My third grader stopped using manipulatives for simple sums somewhere in second grade when she realized it was faster just to write down the answer and my sixth grader has quit using 'cheat sheets' for multiplication after her last few fell victim to her preschool brother (apparently copying sums over and over again aids memorization  )
If one of my children was being frustrated by not knowing their sums, I'd consider having a more formal drill separate from their regular math, probably using a computer program as drills are something the computer is particularly well suited for.
I would however work with manipulatives (or handcreated'cheat sheets') during their regular math as long as they understood the concepts they were working with.
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mom2mpr
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| Posted: Oct 15 2009 at 6:57pm | IP Logged
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My ds was stressed by drill until about 4-5th grade. I agree working with counters and having cheat sheets of some sort seems to help them learn until they might be ready for some "stress" in the learning process. I find the homeschool kids I know want to get them right, don't want to rush and will learn them with time and patience--and know them for a long time. Some computer games helped and were fun-for awhile.
I found it a developmental thing for my guy. Now at 6th grade he enjoys flash cards and timed tests. We are doing them once a week or so for addition, multiplication, subtraction and division. Now they are fun for him. He has grown into a competitive guy and loves to beat his times.
Hope that helps.
Anne
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ALmom
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| Posted: Oct 15 2009 at 8:05pm | IP Logged
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A lot really depends on the personalities and dynamics going on in your house - and as someone else said, the readiness. The goal is that children should, at some point, know instantly, those basic facts and they should be able to recall them and use them efficiently. Of course they have to know what they mean, too.
Some folks simply love memorizing and find it all a game. They might as well have fun and memorize the things once they have some basic concepts in their head. Other kids need to plod along and prove things to themselves - and they won't memorize until they are really convinced there is a point to it. My visual learners really had a hard time just memorizing math facts - these folks had to build visual pictures of the whole concept for themselves - and do this repeatedly. The repeated visual picture eventually brought the facts to their mind instantly. No amount of flashcard work would have done it for one of mine. He simply had to use MUS blocks or the abacus or some visual picture while doing the problems. Now, he is finally seeing that having those facts in his head is making his math go way faster.
Some need lots and lots of practice simply plodding the slow way to convince themselves that this really is true every single time. (I should know, I refused to memorize multiplication facts and insisted on adding 2 + 2 + how ever many times) for my entire second grade year  . Once I was convinced, drill was rather painless and fun - my friend and I marched around the house reciting whichever fact was the hit list of the day. A lot of them had become second nature to me just from hearing my classmates recite them. I just simply refused to do it that way for a long time. When I did decide, I did in a week what the rest of the class took all year to do. In the end both my classmates and I knew our facts. (Funny thing, I never did memorize my addition facts and counted on my fingers until my own children started memorizing facts and by golly I wasn't going to look dumb counting on my fingers  ) I was never very quick at things and not very good at mental math - but give me pencil and paper and let me write out all the steps and I felt like I was playing games. I was a math major, so I won't so that counting on my fingers was a life altering thing - it took me longer to do the same work, I wasn't going to win any math team races, and I was very embarrassed that I still counted on my fingers so I did most of my counting mentally to hide it from my fellow math majors - and yes, my dh thought it was hysterical when he found out. He can add in his head faster than most folks work a calculator. I also didn't really have the same number sense because so much mental time is spent counting when I could have been noticing patterns and learning number tricks - learned most of those after teaching the children). Life would have been a bit easier with those facts at my finger tips.
In my house, manipulatives were needed for a long time for that visual reinforcement as to the meaning of these things - to help the math thinking. I think so many of my children are visual or kinesthetic learners that just flashcards or drill sheets was never going to get them to know their facts quickly. Eventually they do learn them with repetition. When they got bogged down taking too long, math fact memorizing was a means to an end. Some of mine made their own flashcards and drilled themselves while jumping on the tramp, some liked to race the timer, some were so stressed by time pressure that they would freeze and we had to come up with a different way, some we had them time themselves and see how long it took to finish the drill sheet (then they'd see if they could do it a little faster next time), some of mine memorized the drill sheet before the facts  so we got them engaged differently. Some of mine, sheer repetiion eventually did it. Some of mine it was asking questions like how many days in 3 weeks at random times. However, my boys being who they are, found that making baseball flashcards and then getting into a huge competition was what motivated them to just learn the things. Others, learned them simply playing dice games and being the first to shout it out. We also have the game math-it and some computer drill games which they liked. I like the idea of a cheat sheet - but since mine hated writing, this would have been sheer torture for them. My upcoming guy may really like this and I love the idea. One of my visual learners, I had him build the facts using MUS blocks for the drill sheet (no time limit) and just the time factor got him to put that mental picture in his head and finally learn the facts. Oral drill seems good too - and the trick seems to be to focus on just 1 or 2 facts at a time until they are automatic. We did this by doing a drill sheet once and then my children circled (or I noted) whichever facts didn't come to their head instantly. We picked one of those and studied it for just a very short segment of time ( a few seconds scattered a few times during the day for a period of time), then added in another one and did the same thing. When we did the drill sheet again, they were excited by how fast it went. And, I sometimes just do drills and they think that is a day off because the time limit. One of my daughters didn't learn her facts until late middle school. No wonder Saxon took her so long to do. I think she would have benefitted if we'd discoverd her lack of math fact automaticity sooner - but she learned them in middle school.
We've gotten everyone on the stairs and the first to shout out an answer gets to move up a step ... until someone finally makes it to the top. The children added in things like, wrong answers meant you took a step back .... The more competitive and boisterous for some of the boys, the better they liked it.
I wouldn't make it a horrible and tedious or dreaded thing - seems to me that that is counterproductive. My teachers could insist on drill and make me come up to their desk to recite my 2 X tables every day for a year and I didn't do anything about it. I simply came up and dutifully started adding 2s - of course I was asked to go back to my desk and work on them more since I was way too slow. It didn't matter to me. I needed time to systematically line up the pieces before I felt ready to just memorize. They'd have done better to have me write out a chart for myself where I added all the 2s, etc. Eventually, these would have been hard not to know. I might have accidently memorized them the first time I completed the chart - as it was I was usually at my seat long before I got very far in the twos. At the end of the year, I knew my times tables - all of them. I simply learned them efficiently once I had a reason to.
So with all my boys, I've had to show them why it is important to memorize. You know, you don't have to, but then it sure takes an awful long time. For my boys who really want to be out in the woods or doing something away from a desk - fast is a great motivator. It only takes them seeing it once, and then they are off and to it finding their own most efficient way to learn em.
Janet
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Erin
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| Posted: Oct 16 2009 at 5:10am | IP Logged
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I can only discuss times tables as that is all I have experience with. I started out of the opinion rote learning wasn't so important, lots of areas not just maths. I really wish now I had taught tables by rote. My 14yr old still struggles with his tables, the younger children (with whom I teach by rote now) have it far easier.
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Willa
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| Posted: Oct 16 2009 at 10:04am | IP Logged
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My children were all different.
Firstborn didn't learn by rote. He was strong at conceptualization but slow at retrieving things from memory. Around 5th or 6th grade it "clicked" but he still wasn't fast. He became my strongest math student so far.
Second and thirdborn learned by rote though perhaps not to the point of "overlearning" which is what the experts recommend. They never got comfortable with math though they're not bad, just anxious and they dislike having to do it.
Fourthborn seemed to be born knowing his math facts. He loved those paper speed drills and got where he could tie my score. He's a fairly good math student. If he has a problem it's that he charges through things TOO fast and makes mistakes, but he's getting better at that.
With the fifthborn I worked a lot on mental math with him -- having him figure out different ways to solve a given problem. I thought I had done the second two a disservice by making math too formulaic so they didn't develop math confidence and problem-solving mentality. He did a lot of mental math and math with real things like money. He also did the math games that you can find all over the place online. He knows the math facts now though as with my firstborn it took till about 5th or 6th grade.
So, I don't have a real standard way of doing things. If I had to do it over again I would have worked slightly more with my firstborn on speed recall and worked quite a bit more with my 2nd and 3rd on mental problem-solving and figuring out their own solutions. With all three, I would have incorporated more daily review into a lesson -- that is, for fifth grade math I'd spend a few minutes on 2nd or 3rd grade concepts. Confidence building AND good for overlearning of basic facts. Those things seemed to pay off in my later kids.
With my seventh, who seems to be quick to grasp math, I try to combine all the different things. I have him solve problems in his head in a quick review session before we start actual math; he does fun drills on the computer; sometimes we play math games. I try to have him doing a bit of math a level or two behind where he iss, some right on grade level, and some ahead of where he is now (introducing concepts like 100's when he was five and it was fun, before he actually "had" to know them). It sounds like I'm spending a lot of time on math, but not really. Computers make it easier. I keep a couple of extra workbooks around for earlier and later levels so I can easily figure out what to do for review of earlier concepts and what I can do to make more advanced concepts fun and interesting for small children.
This got long and complex, sorry!
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Michiel
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My ds, 8, really struggles with math. He still doesn't know, know that 2+3=5. He can count it on his fingers, and use manipulatives to figure it out, but he cannot recall that fact. We have been just doing addition drills with cards that I made through 5+5. It doesn't take long, and we always follow it with a math game and a board game on Fridays. In the two months that we have been doing it, and it has been slow and gentle, I have been amazed at his improvement in recalling math facts. I really do believe that this is something that one should just know, by memory, without even thinking about it. It is happening with just daily drill and repitition, no stress, no pressure. It is coming along very slowly here, but it is coming and will happen in its own time. We are not moving forward at all until addition is down cold. I don't see the sense in doing otherwise.
Today he was so proud of himself because he did all the cards without counting on fingers. Next week, we're adding number 6.
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Land O' Cotton
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| Posted: Oct 22 2009 at 8:38am | IP Logged
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I have the same issue here with math facts. What I did was order the Right Start Math Games book (I found a used copy). I made all of the cards to use with the book by cutting poster board down to size. The book give directions for the number of cards for each deck that you need. The cards for the game Corners were easiest to make, and that has been our bread and butter for the 5 and ten facts. My 9 y/o loves this game, and we play it several times over at a time. There are some videos on youtube of the math games being played, so you can get an idea of how it works. Just type in ALAbacusMathFun in the search box on youtube and they will come up for you.
I don't drill math facts, though at one time I did. We use MEP math and also try to have some time for "math lab" daily for exploration. I think that's the key---let them make their own connections with manipulatives. I buy those pretty round colored stones at Dollar Tree and we use them for counting, addition, and lately multiplication. I'm seeing MEP help with the thought process behind learning facts, though it doesn't have any fact drill per se in its lessons.
Hope this helps!
Vicki
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LLMom
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| Posted: Oct 22 2009 at 8:07pm | IP Logged
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SOmething I did to help 2 of my dd learn their facts was to give them a penny for every correct fact each day. Once they had $5 we bought them one of those little bobbly head animals. (littlest pet shop?) It made it less of a chore for them. They loved to count their money each day.
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MNMommy
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| Posted: Nov 14 2009 at 7:11am | IP Logged
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My oldest is only 2nd grade, so my experience is limited. We don't drill in any fashion. She doesn't even play math computer games. All we use is the RightStart curriculum including the RightStart math card games. The card games are fab-u-lous!! 
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Michiel
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| Posted: Nov 14 2009 at 4:07pm | IP Logged
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My older ds just KNEW the math facts: no effort at all. It was just wired into him. That was so nice. My younger ds has no clue. He just doesn't get the logic. I very strongly believe that one needs these facts in order to function in the world much more easily, just as one needs to be able to read words.
What to do? We do some drill, taking attention span into consideration, play TONS of math games doing math facts with dice, dominoes, etc. And we do some Montessori ideas. The cool thing is that it does work. Very slowly, but it works.
My main concern is to keep from turning ds off math, keep it relaxed, keep it fun, and gradually learn these skills.
Michiel, mother of 2 boys
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TxTrish
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| Posted: Nov 18 2009 at 10:15am | IP Logged
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We always do what is insultingly called drill & kill.
Calculadder is my weapon of choice.
We also have some computer games, and have or have had various games and so forth along the way.
But, Calculadder has always been my faithful standby.
All 5 kids have done them. 3 youngest currently do them daily.
I approach it with a really positive this is fun attitude. They race each other(at their own levels) to be fastest. Sometimes I will give a little candy treat, mostly not - math drills is just one of those things I am really hung up about. I think math is easy if you know all the basic facts inside/outside/upside down.
So, on we go - drill every day.
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melanie
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| Posted: Nov 18 2009 at 11:51am | IP Logged
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I think drill is very important, that if they really have those facts down cold it will make higher math much, much easier. But like most things, it comes easier when they are ready. My 9yo is just now starting to really remember some of his facts, I never thought I'd see the day! How you drill though...we've used Math-It, computer games, Calculadder,,,,doesn't really matter how, just that it gets done consistently enough to stick. Math U See gives some little memory jogs for certain facts which is nice. I'll remember forever now 8 x 8= 64 because "they ate and ate until they were sick on the floor".  
Lisa, I love the idea of giving a penny for each correct fact, great idea. I don't mind bribing for more tedious schoolwork.
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4Real Forums : Living and Loving Numbers
Topic: opinions on math drills?
