Customer Reviews

How to Teach Math Facts, Grades 1-4

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I bought this book based on the first review. I found the book not so great. It showed some tricks. But I know more tricks than what the book has shown--I am just an average science major with no teaching or math degree on my belt.

The 3x5 card approach does not seem very smart, either. I don't see how it is better than "practice,practice, practice". There must be a better way for teaching kids math. Does anybody have any suggetions of a better math-teaching book?

This is a very helpful book to teach math facts, especially for those students who find it difficult to memorize basic facts. There are lots of neat tricks to share with students to make math fun and successful. I recommend this book for parents and teachers of third and second graders.

I'm a first grade teacher trying to figure out a way to teach math facts and introduce them systematically into our curriculum. This system seems very time consuming to use for all children in a classroom - but with parent help, it might work.

I do like the ideas for parents though...I've used the suggestions in this book with my first grader who is learning addition math facts. He especially likes the idea of the Quick Card (page 15) that tells how to move facts mastered to a stack of cards you don't have to practice as much. It's a systematic way to teach and practice the facts. I also like the maintenance plan (p. 87) that recommends you practice 20 cards of the mastered stack each day. I believe building a strong math fact foundation will help kids all the way through elementary math and beyond!

I do have one caution: teaching all of the "tricks" for addition may be confusing. You have to pick and choose the tricks to teach based on the individual child!

I am tutoring a 10-year old girl who knew only the most basic math facts. We are 1/3 of the way through the book, and the techniques are proving to be extremely effective. It presents the facts by "chunking" them, so rather than just trying to memorize 160 random facts, she is learning small groups at one time, that are related by the "tricks" in the book. Also, the record-keeping chart in the back is very helpful to me to keep track of her progress in an organized way. So far, it's wonderful.