Chapter Two Response

When teaching students to multiply and commit their multipication facts to memory, it is very useful to introduce several visual strategies. One strategy is to have students draw or create arrays for the multiplication facts they are working on. Another strategy is to have students use known facts to solve unknown facts. For example, if a student is having trouble remember 6X8, have the student think of a fact he/she already knows. Most students are familiar with their 5's tables early on, so they may say that they know 5X8=40 and 1X8=8 and then add 40+8 to get 48. Having students draw these arrays and coloring an array for 5X8 in one color and an array for 1X8 right beneath or above it (skip no lines on graph paper) can be a great visual to show that the overall array is 6X8=48. Repeated use of this technique (as well as many others) can help students commit their multiplication facts to memory.