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Fun with Facts! Part One

© Irene Taylor

Math facts! Some kids love 'em, most hate 'em! But one thing is for sure. Success with these facts will help to insure success in future mathematics studies. You can help by giving your students some strategies for learning important math facts. Here are a few "tricks" which you can share with your class. After your students have mastered these strategies, they can apply them in everyday math work.

GENERAL STRATEGIES:
Learning facts in families is a good way to increase mastery. Always have students learn facts in related groups. 2+3, 3+2, 5-3, and 5-2 are all related facts. So are 4x6, 6x4, 24 divided by 4, and 24 divided by 6. If a child learns facts in groups, it will actually lower the number of "new" facts to be learned. For a good way to practice (here's an oldie but goodie!), make flash cards with two related facts together on the same card (for example, both 4+5 and 5+4 on the front of the same card with 9 on the back as the answer to both problems).

Have your students learn all of the "doubles" first. These are easy ones to remember, and there are only two related facts for each double: 4+4 and 8-4, for example.

No matter which facts your student is learning, it is a good idea to mark off the facts that have already been mastered on a fact chart. This helps to track progress, and also is a good visual for seeing how few facts there are left to learn. For example, by the time your student gets to the 6 times table, she already should know: 1x6, 2x6, 3x6, 4x6, 5x6, and 6x6 from the previous times tables and the doubles. That only leaves three new facts: 7x6, 8x6,and 9x6 to be learned. Looking at the few new ones is much more encouraging than looking at the whole table, and students will be happy to see how many they already knows.

ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION FACT STRATEGIES:

1. Doubles Plus One - Once your student has mastered the doubles, teach the "doubles plus one" strategy. For all facts that are one away from a "double" - for example, 4+5 , it is easy to remember the double fact, 4+4, and just add one to the answer. So if 4+4=8, then 4+5 is 9, one more than 8. This will also work as a "doubles minus one" strategy. In the above example, if the student knows 5+5 better, then 4+5 is one LESS than 10.

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