When students are faced with memorizing math facts the struggle is usually boredom. I don’t know if flashcards are more boring for the student or the parent. Death by flashcards is slow and painful. I admit to using flashcards for less than 15 minutes of my parenting career. I realize that my parenting years are not over, but my children all have their math facts memorized, so I think I’m in the clear. If we didn’t use flashcards then how did we memorize math facts? The same way you did. Drill. Repetition is not just a rhetorical skill, but is also a means to memorization. At the end of the day, memorizing math facts is boring. Sometimes we need to do boring things. That is reality. However, we need to be careful not to identify the truths behind the math facts as boring. Even though the act of memorizing a string of multiples is not exciting, the relationships represented are far from boring. One way to help our children tolerate the boredom is to balance the repetitious drilling with the beautiful truth.
In math facts we may use physical manipulatives or tell stories to make it more interesting. I like to explore the beauty by telling stories of mathematicians and completing activities. One such activity is making Napier Rods. John Napier was a mathematician in the 1500s who had a keen sense of both human and animal nature. When faced with the pesky job of mental multiplication in the marketplace, Napier created a tool out of sticks or bones that merchants would carry. Math Masters can check out how to make and use them in our Number Sense course in the multiplication lesson.
As we start this new year, I challenge you to find the balance of beauty for everything that you tend to consider boring.