Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Multiplication - easy stuff harder than advanced?

I have a child who adamantly denies being a smart kid, but we just received the Cogat, Iowa, and IQ scores which all add up to absolutely gifted. I can see why she might feel "less than" -for example, she has to take these quizzes every week that have multiplication questions. She had to get all the "1's" correct to move on to the "2's", then get all the "3's" correct to go to the "4's" etc. She just can't get out of the 7s. Her WISC score indicated some big smarts in math yet she struggles with memorizing something like 7 x 8. To her, it just proves that she cannot do math. She also gets pulled out for AG math every week, and she insists that it is NOT math because it's fun. She says that she hates math because it's so awful in her classroom - I would hate it too if I couldn't get past the 7s!!
What is this all about? I plan on having "the big talk" with her third grade teacher next Monday about how we can get her adequately challenged, and I am afraid that I am going to hear (again) that she needs to get the basics mastered before she can move on up to more advanced math.
Thanks!!

How is she studying the multiplication facts?

Perhaps until the 7s she didn't need to give any focused attention to remembering them. If you haven't already, I'd spend some time with her and a stack of flash cards.

(Please ignore this post if you have already tried this.)

Memory and thinking are different animals. Search the forums here for multiplication, what you describe is pretty common. Many gifted kids need something tangible to wrap their heads around and engage their minds. Rote memorization doesn't. Often times, practice is not as good as deep thinking to lock in learning. Here's a cool technique to help with multiplication tables for kids who excel at big pattern thinking:
http://www.visual-learners.com/support-files/nbf-6-9-10.pdf

Gaining fluency with multiplication facts becomes much easier with knowledge of the patterns that unify them.

For example, if you want to compute 7 x 8, you might reason

"8 is 2 x 2 x 2, we have 7 x 2 = 14, and 14 x 2 = 28, and 28 x 2 = 56, so 7 x 8 = 56"

or

"8 is 10 - 2, so 8 x 7 is the same as 10 7's minus 2 7's, which is 70 - 14 = 56"

If you happen to know that 7 x 7 = 49, you can reason that 7 x 8 is just 7 more than 49, which is 56.

Awareness of the patterns helps not only because it gives you lots of possible ways to do a computation, but also because it makes the material more engaging than rote memorization, so that it sticks better.

Teachers are often unable or unwilling to accommodate students with special needs. If that's the case of your daughter's teacher, it's not necessarily a serious problem: she doesn't need to learn math at school. The most knowledgable people who I know learned the vast majority of what they know outside of school.

For alternative math learning resources, you might check out some of the threads here: some people have liked them a lot, though I don't know whether they teach multiplication facts through patterns.

Our son, recently seven and in first grade, has to do math tests at his school that sound similar to your DD's. They start with addition and move through multiplication and then division...all at the child's pace. The tests are all timed.

We asked for copies of the tests. Each week, depending upon which test is coming up, we copy sheets and challenge him to do the test. We then go over the problems he doesn't know. Basically, we "teach to the test".

Also, we have DVD's of math that he watches. For instance, we have the DVD of Schoolhouse Rock Multiplication. It makes memorization a bit more fun. (Sevens start at 16:50)

Our DS is in third grade math and recently passed a 78 question, five minute timed test in all division facts up to multiples of twelve.

He had difficulty with seven's, too. Tell your DD not to give up!

Hi all! These are all great! I can't wait to show her (and her big sis!!) all this tomorrow! Maybe she can fly through the 8's and 9's quickly with all this!

For 7's, she could try this approach:

8 x 5 = 40
8 x 2 = 16

40 + 16 = 56

8 x 7 = 56

I used to get really stuck on 8 x 7 (54 or 56...wait, was it 63?) but once I thought of it as 40 + 16, I stopped being confused.

My DS (now 11) learned his times tables years before the timed tests his school gives in 3rd grade. To refresh his skills and speed him up, we started skip counting (counting by 2, 3, 4, etc. to 12 X the number) on the way to school.... always helps to have a captive audience :-)

Not only did it help him but his brother who was 5 at the time learned as well, much to the dismay of his kindergarten teacher... ugg! It certainly isn't exciting to refresh knowledge you already (boring! beneath me in my DS' opinion) but the skip counting as fast as we could was sort of fun.

Also, 'Math Drills' or 'MathBoard' for the iPad are good practice and more exciting than paper.

We chant or sung them. Like Schoolhouse Rock.