Teaching Kids to Multiply

One of the most difficult and challenging things that you can do with elementary school students is get them to enjoy math. Addition worksheets and subtraction worksheets aren’t what most children want to be doing during their day. Math in basic terms is often all that easy to teach, but when it comes to teaching the more complicated theories of mathematics, around third grade, it can be a little more difficult to keep the students interested. It can be even more difficult to implement ways of teaching that can help the students understand the theories of multiplication without getting confused.
Multiplication tables are a great way to break into teaching multiplication. The five times tables and other small numbers prove easier to teach most elementary school students. Students will find it easy to just keep adding another digit to their last result to find the next number in the time tables. By teaching this first, you can get the students in the mood and comfortable with multiplying. The problems may occur, however, once you’ve reached a higher times tables than five. The trick of simply adding another digit to the last result, to find the next number in the table becomes much more difficult.
There comes a point where students will have to start memorizing the times tables in order to remember them, as opposed to being able to use a particular method. Here you must be able to implement fun methods of teaching to make memorizing the times tables a much less daunting task. This is an important part of mathematics. If your students fail to become proficient with their times tables soon they’ll struggle in the later grades of school. So what can you actually do to be able to increase their ability in this field?
There are a number of things that both parents and teachers alike can do to help the student succeed. On behalf of their parents, they must do a number of things. First of all, a homework system must be implemented at home to ensure that the child is not neglecting their studies at home. Ignoring their work at home and trying to do everything at school never helps! By sitting with your children during the evening, turning off the television and helping them become familiar with multiplication you will ultimately be helping them perform better in class. I often suggest flash cards for multiplication at home.
If you think your child will benefit, there are things you can buy to enhance their studies. You can obviously buy books to help them, but many children see reading as a chore these days. You can choose from a number of computer software CDs and math web sites that make multiplication fun. These math games allow your child to have fun playing games while getting to know multiplication tables at the same time.
Teachers must obviously set appropriate homework, and make sure that it’s not too much. Homework is an important part of a student’s studies, but setting too much can lower morale and make a child feel overwhelmed. Setting fun and sensible amounts of homework can seriously help a child on their way to memorizing and understanding the multiplication tables.
The most important thing to remember when trying to help your child is to try to keep it fun. Math should always be presented to children in a fun way. They should not even realize they are learning.

Cris Styles is editor for Teachnology’s printable math worksheets and lesson plans center areas. Teachnology helps millions of K-12 teachers and homeschoolers every month by providing free printable educator and homeschool resources.

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