My DD who just turned five has always been stronger in language than math, but could still tell time, add simple things, skip count, etc. by three. She was recently tested and her math concepts were at third grade. She is good at puzzles, found learning to tell time to the minute intuitive, etc, yet it seems that math facts are a weak spot. I don't drill her. She is able to answer MANY facts, yet I am surprised that her astounding memory isn't able to hold and grasp more. I know that may sound awful, but it just seems she interacts with math facts different than anything else we encountered. There is no need for having these mastered now, esp since she is going to K in Sept. and they will barely be going beyond counting, but it seems to me that it would be nice for her to have them in her pocket so she can do more with numbers. She is fine with understanding fractions, the concept of multiplication, etc. but can mess up simple addition. Has anyone else's child shown this pattern? It is the only thing we encountered that didn't seem automatic.

This seems very common. In fact, she gets less opportunities to learn through drill than other children, so I would drill her! It's nice to have a child who is unusual in ways that schools 'get.' Cold knowledge of Math Facts is a way to speak the schools language, more so than, say, being able to compare two pieces of literature. Math Facts is something that most kids struggle with, and if she has them, they will 'get' that she is advanced.

I would still make a game out of the drill, and keep it fun and short, but I would go daily. I was lucky, in 3rd grade DH drove DS to school each morning, and that's about all they did in the car - drill math facts. DS and I are both still sort of shaky on them. Some families like songs, sometimes it's funny (punny) pictures. On my side of the family, it's card games like 'Casino'

http://www.pagat.com/fishing/casino.html

Smiles,
Grinity

I made a number line that runs across the floor. We play 'jump to the number'. I give the kids a question (on the chalkboard) and they take turns jumping on the answer. If they don't automatically know the answer then they can figure it out. We cover a lot of ground this way... it works well for DS3 and DD7.

Annaliisa

I find that even though Aiden (4) knows many maths factsalmost intuitively, once he has moved on to a new maths concept he seems to forget them until he needs them again.

We use games as much as possible to remind him that he knows them.

Yup, and in DS's case it's not that he's more languagey than mathy! I remember noticing this at about the same point, i.e. when he was happy with multiplication and fractions but could still make errors in basic addition. We never bothered drilling addition and subtraction facts (though we didn't object when school did it a bit) trusting that they'd get automatic after he'd been using them for a while longer; e.g. you can't do long multiplication without practising digit addition! Might have done if he hadn't been choosing to spend so much time on those things though. We did encourage him to learn his times tables by rote, a little while later, using Timez Attack.

Love that Timez Attack - DS4 loves to play from the beginning each time and DS2 loves to watch. And they are both learning along the way... even though I am not sure that DS2 understands the concept of multiplication - he knows his 2 times table! haha

Annaliisa, that sounds interesting. What did you use to make the number line?

Timez attack is adding division, addition and subtraction...my kids can't wait. Right now we just play for free. Once they add the addition, subtraction and division...I will get them each a few months subscription to the fancier version (my older son could use the review and loves the game and once he tires of it I'll cancel his). My younger son will probably have his subscription for longer.

DS9 has the same issue. His math reasoning is incredible (easily tests in the 7th to 8th grade age ....he's in 3rd grade), but give him simple multiplication tables and he falls apart. In fact, he tests pretty average in calculation. I've never understood how he can be a "math genius" and not be able to do simple calculations. If anyone has an explanation for this, I'd love to hear it.

We used Timez attack quite a bit this past year. DS was frustrated with it because he felt like he had to answer the drills too quickly. He does have a relative weakness with processing speed, so I guess that makes sense.

My son in first grade tested into 5th-6th grade on the math parts of the WJ test. He really has to work on his math facts.
He has a processing learning disability. On the WISC, he got 98-99% (99% on most parts) and 40% on the PSI part. He has written into his IEP for his hearing loss that he can have extended time on tests but he has never used it.
I would just keep working on it. flashcards. I bought Kumon. I have him once a week do the 2 minute drill they do in school.
Interestingly, my son seems able to answer the questions faster verbally than with writing. I've suggested to him that when he does a written test, to whisper the question to himself to see if that accesses some faster, different part of his brain. His handwriting is excellent so it isn't that.
My son is doing Mathblasters but at a lower level- he said it was "stressing him out" at higher levels since it was "too fast."

Reasoning has very little to do with rote memorization and rapid retrieval. There are lots of mathematical geniuses who were not particularly stellar at timed math facts as children.

The comment by aculady on reasoning having little to do with rapid retrieval reminded me of Art Benjamin. He uses language to remember numbers.

You can see him on YouTube. ("Mathmagician")

I'm not an expert, but have you heard of anarithmetria, it can be common with the gifted and it affects the retrieval and memory of math facts and not mathematical comprehension. If you Google anarithmetria you may find some good info.

barb

Sorry, a little OT, but thank you so much for the Timze Attack recommendation. DD has sworn off TV in an effort to get more time to play it!

It is quite awesome hey so gad she is enjoying it!

My DD9 came to me in tears tonight because she couldn't get off the current level without being able to answer drills in 2 seconds "and it's a really quick two seconds too mum!". I told her to play something else but she was both devestated and desperate go keep going,, poor thing. She wants to play and to progress but she's just not that quick...

Here is an unoriginal suggestion for learning math facts -- have the child complete an addition or multiplication table. My 5yo thinks it is fun, and he reviews various concepts as he fills in a multiplication table, with a little help from me:

(1) The same numbers appear in the 3's row and the 3's column, because multiplication is communative (sic).
(2) The numbers in the 3's row equal the sum of the numbers in the 1's row and 2's row.
(3) You can fill the 3's row to the right by adding 3's, OR you can fill it to the left by subtracting 3's. You get the same answer either way.
(4) Multiples of 11 (up to 9*11) have repeated digits.

When my DS could answer the fact quickly but couldn't type it quickly enough, I just typed the answer in as he called it out. Sure, it meant that I had to stand there the whole time he was playing, but it definitely removed the frustration factor. Sometimes, if I was busy, though, I'd have DS's older brother or sister type the answers in!

hi Barb,

That sounds interesting, but I am not so sure. She actually is much farther along on math facts than other kids her age with very little practice; she just didn't memorize the facts by hearing them once or twice the way she does other things so to me, this is preplexing. I guess I am spoiled in that I don't need to repeat things and it seems she may need practice or repetition in this one area and she resists repetition. I don't even think they will do much with adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing in Kindergarten in the fall so she won't be introduced to it there either. It really isn't a big deal. It is just the first thing that wasn't automatic and effortless end to end. As I said, she knows a ton of math facts quickly, but some of them took practice and nothing else took practice so it seems like a relative weakness.

Hi, TwinkleToes! Our kids are fascinating little creatures, yes?

Just throwing this idea out there, but I found with my kids that they memorized their multiplication and division facts much more readily than their addition and subtration facts. I think this might have been because, with + and -, they could rely on picture memory or finger counting and with X and / this was just much more complicated. So they had to memorize X and / but only needed to memorize + and - for speed's sake.

I found that doing mathdoku/KenKen puzzles helped my DDs gradually memorize their math facts. Both the logic element and the fact that it wasn't timed made it more fun.

DS5 found this pretty fun at one point:
http://www.worksheetworks.com/puzzles/math-maze.html

we also get that frustration with timez attack to the point of meltdown at times. we now warn that at the first sign of freakout, the PC goes off without warning.

I try and tell him that he needs to play again and again if he does not know/cant remember the answers.

sowhat we find is this: he will play a section over and over. then when he is too frustrated he goes back and starts from the very beginning. then he messes around there for a while and then when he feels ready and goes back to his frustration point, he has miraculously learnt all the answers for that section. and so it goes on and on.

he is now nearly done with the 3 times tables (yay!) and so is back to the messing around at thestart of the game again

I just thought I would give an update. My DD5.1 is now doing great with math facts (at the level we were working on...there is room to grow). She and I just didn't know how to approach something that wasn't automatic. I still don't drill her (she would resist and be very negative about that), but do give her some practice problems every other day or so. I suppose I could do more, but this seems enough for now. Her math concept level is very high (based on testing) and so I want her to have the facts to be automatic for her so she can do more, but I am very careful not to push her because she gets very hostile if I try to impose an agenda even if I try to do it in a "fun" way.