Quick Eleven Times (I)


The way to manage eleven times quickly is easy to discover for you. The reason is, you have already mastered the trick for finding out nine times of any number quickly. In this article we will take a look at how you can quickly answer eleven times of any number.

The tricks for finding out quick answers for different multiplication problems are based on a very useful structural property of multiplication. It is the distributive property of multiplication. This property was explained earlier in short, in the articleThree rules simplify multiplication.

Children should be taught this property at some stage while dealing with multiplication.

  • One reason for doing this is the distributive property provides a strong link of the concept of multiplication with the concept of addition.
  • One more reason is, after learning this property; teachers enjoy flexibility in teaching higher level or complex multiplication problems.

Let us examine how this property provides flexibility in discovering the correct answer for any multiplication fact. Many children are confused when asked, "What is eight times seven?" They feel that it is either 54 or 56. They do not recall the correct answer in time. This is the situation where children can use the distributive property of multiplication over addition and get to the correct answer.

They have a choice of many ways to use this property. Some of these choices are shown in the figure below.

This example shows how children can experience more confidence in carrying out multiplication if they have learned the distributive property of multiplication.

We can teach this property in such a way that children discover it themselves. The teacher can use a following type of situation.

Suppose there is a small theatre in the town. The theatre is partitioned lengthwise into two portions by a central passage. In the right portion of this theatre there are nine rows of chairs and in each row there are seven chairs. In the left portion of this theatre there are nine rows of chairs and in each row there are eight chairs. We want to know at a time, how many people could attend a show.

Analysis of this problem is presented in the figure below.

br> Teachers can find out many more such situations urging children to utilize the distributive property of multiplication over addition.

After understanding the practical value of the distributive property of multiplication over addition, children should be encouraged to find out easier ways of managing many multiplication problems like finding out eleven times any number.

The copyright of the article Quick Eleven Times (I) in Math for Kids is owned by Vidya Narayan Wadadekar . Permission to republish Quick Eleven Times (I) in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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