Monday, August 18, 2014

Yes, Children Should Memorize The Multiplication Tables

I've always thought that it worked something like this, so it's nice to have the fine folks at Stanford backing me up:
When it comes to adding up it's experience that counts, scientists have found.

Research carried out on elementary school-age children has revealed that drilling children on simple addition and multiplication may pay off.

According to the results, as children's brains develop remembering sums helps them add up faster.

'Experience really does matter,' said Dr Kathy Mann Koepke of the National Institutes of Health, which funded the research.

Healthy children start making that switch between counting to what's called fact retrieval when they're eight to nine-years-old, when they're still working on fundamental addition and subtraction.

How well children make that shift to memory-based problem-solving is known to predict their ultimate math achievement.

Those who fall behind 'are impairing or slowing down their math learning later on,' Mann Koepke said...

But that's not the whole story.

Next, Menon's team put 20 adolescents and 20 adults into the MRI machines and gave them the same simple addition problems. It turns out that adults don't use their memory-crunching hippocampus in the same way. Instead of using a lot of effort, retrieving six plus four equals 10 from long-term storage was almost automatic, Menon said.

In other words, over time the brain became increasingly efficient at retrieving facts. Think of it like a bumpy, grassy field, NIH's Mann Koepke explained.

Walk over the same spot enough and a smooth, grass-free path forms, making it easier to get from start to end.

If your brain doesn't have to work as hard on simple maths, it has more working memory free to process the teacher's brand-new lesson on more complex math.

'The study provides new evidence that this experience with math actually changes the hippocampal patterns, or the connections. They become more stable with skill development,' she said.

'So learning your addition and multiplication tables and having them in rote memory helps.'
This seems perfectly reasonable to anyone except extreme fuzzies and certain members of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.  As I've said for years, it's not "drill and kill", it's "drill and skill".

8 comments:

allen (in Michigan) said...

Why am I dead certain that this information won't result in consternation and the wholesale dumping of all the "rote learning is the devil's tool" edu-crap? Oh yeah, because ed schools aren't really interested in education.

Mike Thiac said...

I can't remember which grade (it was before 5th) I had memorized the table to 20x20. Not exactly too much effort.

neko said...

Makes me wish I had memorized my times tables properly when I was a kid.

Ellen K said...

And yet we have removed such things as memorizing multiplication tables, historic dates, phone numbers is effectively leaving young brains undeveloped. Supposedly holding onto information without the aid of a device is last year's news. We are raising a nation of students who will allow technology to tell them how to think. Isn't that the way every robot movie begins?

maxutils said...

I'm generally not in favorr of rote learning ... but times tables are an exception. It makes all math easier ...

momof4 said...

About 10 years ago, a relative had moved from teaching 3rd grade to 5th grade. When her last 3rd-grade none of those from her old class knew their basic facts. The other 5th-grade teacher saw the same pattern. When they met with the new,young teacher to find out why none of the kids new their times tables, she said that she didn't expect that because her ed school said it wasn't necessary. They couldn't convince her otherwise, but the principal backed them and said that math facts needed to be practiced to automatic recall. Great! Long division, fractions and factoring need that base.

Happy Elf Mom (Christine) said...

Darren, this makes me feel much better. I have homeschoolers in second and first grade and they have not memorized all their addition facts. Most of the little ones, but things like 8 +7 still trip them up no matter how many times we do them. I will just keep practicing and it will happen.

If you have specific suggestions on what works with smaller children to help memorization, let me know!

maxutils said...

Happy elf mom ... for addition and subtraction, pictures are great. Use plus signs for positive and - signs for negatives ... make it visual ... a + and a - cancel each other out. Whatever # you have of either sign is the answer. They soon realize it's easier to memorize...