Ask Kate: How Much Should I Stress the Math Facts for My Older Student?

Have an upper-elementary or middle-school-age child who’s still having trouble with the math facts? These 4 tips will help you balance math fact instruction with moving forward with your regular homeschool math curriculum.  

I am currently working through MasterBooks Math Lessons for a Living Education Level 4 with my 9 year old daughter. Math is her “weakest” subject and we have spent many hours frustrated that neither of us can figure out how to help her learn a lesson or move past the simple math facts. I have purchased all 4 of your “Math Facts That Stick workbooks” and we really enjoy those and they have definitely helped. However, I feel a tension between completing the math fact books and continuing her normal lessons. She is going into 5th grade in all other subjects (in the fall with our homeschool) but I can’t stop feeling bad that she isn’t moving faster! She still struggles with subtraction and division facts. She is still memorizing the multiplication facts but gets frustrated with all the skip counting.

-Katy

Dear Katy,

That tension you describe is real! It’s tough to figure out how fast to move forward when you know there are some basics that still need work. But if you’re asking the question, you’re definitely on the right track. 

Some kids just have more  trouble than others mastering the math facts. For a 9 year old, it’s still well worth your time to keep working on them, but not at the expense of moving forward with your regular curriculum. For upper-elementary-age kids like your daughter, here’s what I suggest: 

1. Spend 5 minutes a day (max!) practicing a few math facts. Use games, focus on strategies rather than rote memorization, and keep the time relaxed and light. If you both hit a point where you’re completely sick of them, feel free to take a break for a week or two before resuming. 
2. Continue your regular math program. Encourage your daughter to recall the math facts and use them as much as possible in her assignments. BUT (and this is important!) allow her to use a multiplication table when she’s tackling new concepts that require a lot of multiplication. (For example, finding common denominators, multi-digit multiplication problems, or long division.) It’s just too hard for kids to learn these complex processes when they constantly have to stop and figure out every multiplication fact. Using the chart will help your daughter learn these new skills without feeling overwhelmed. 
3. Skip-counting can be a real hindrance to getting faster at multiplication. Make sure to take a look at p. 19 of Multiplication Facts That Stick for suggestions on how to help her move beyond skip-counting. 
4. Enjoy and celebrate all the other concepts and skills that she’s learning in math. The math facts are an important foundation, but they’re not the whole ballgame. If she’s starting to apply multiplication and division to word problems, understand place-value, and comprehend how fractions and decimals are used in real life, she’s making good fourth-grade progress.              

Happy Math!

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