Total Recall: Helping Our Students Memorize Multiplication Facts

Alycia Zimmerman has done a wonderful job sharing some helpful tips on her Scholastic Classroom Solutions blog.  From reading her posts, it is pretty evident that she must be a remarkable teacher.


Alicia breaks learning the times tables into three stages.

Stage 1: Understanding Equal Groups - Students need to understand what multiplication really means FIRST.  She doesn't rush into the concept, but spends months having her students explore the concept.

Stage 2: "Figure-It-Out" Tricks - The second stage contains tricks for helping the students remember the facts.  I'm all for anything that makes the times tables easier for kids to remember.

She uses "The Best of Times" by Greg Tang with her class.  I'm going to have to go back and look at his book closer.  I purchased it years ago and just glanced at it... dismissing it as just another waste of $$.  (I think I have purchased just about every multiplication book ever printed.  99% are just compilations of simple worksheets.)

Stage 3: Approaching Automaticity - The final step is making the facts automatic.  Again, Alycia has some great tricks for helping kids REMEMBER the facts.

Hmm... it looks like it is time to get this blog rolling.  99.9% of my spare time and energy has been focused on keeping www.multiplication.com rolling along.  I have zillions of things I want to share but don't know where to start.  I finally decided to just START.

So many people are doing so many wonderful things, I am going to use this blog to share resources, ideas, and projects OTHERS are doing rather than just sharing what you can already find at Multiplication.com.

Welcome to the MULTIPLICATION BLOG. Feel free to post tips, tricks, help, concerns, and questions on this blog. (This blog is backed by the resources at www.multiplication.com)