Learning Number Facts: Parent Newsletter 4

Learning Number Facts
By Linda Levi

Learning number facts holds an important place in today’s elementary school mathematics class. When children encounter number facts, they should be encouraged to figure them out in whatever way makes sense to them. When they first solve a problem like 8x6, they may draw a picture of 8 groups of 6 circles and then count all the circles. Doing many problems like this in the early grades gives children a foundation for understanding multiplication. As children get more sophisticated, they might solve 8x6 by adding 8 sixes. This strategy gives children an understanding of the relationship between multiplication and addition. As children continue to mature, they will start to use multiplication facts they know to figure out those they don’t know. A child might say, 8x6 = 6x6 + 2x6 = 36 + 12 = 48. Another child might say, 8x6 = 10x6 – 2x6 = 60 – 12 = 48. This strategy gives children a solid understanding of the distributive property. Eventually children will just know that 8x6 = 48. When I was in elementary school, number facts played a minor role in my education. Every so often I was given a set of flashcards to memorize and a timed test to assess how well I had done. I was not encouraged to figure out number facts and did not learn the big ideas of mathematics in the process of learning my facts. When I taught high school algebra, I had many students who learned number facts as I did. Many of these students did not understand the relationship between multiplication and addition and most of them did not understand the distributive property. It was very hard for these students to learn algebra. In the end, students who use the big ideas of mathematics to help them learn number facts are as efficient and accurate as students who do a good job of memorizing their facts. They, however, have a great advantage in that they understand the big ideas of mathematics and are well prepared to learn further mathematics. Students who memorize number facts miss an important opportunity to develop an understanding of the concepts that they will need to succeed in mathematics.

Linda Levi is an Elementary School Mathematics Consultant and Researcher and Developer of Cognitively Guided Instruction. Dr. Levi has researched the factors that enable children to learn math with understanding and is currently studying how the teaching of mathematics in elementary school can prepare children for success in algebra.