Math may not be your child’s favorite subject, but if they are struggling with it, you should step in and offer them some extra help to make mathematic easier for them.
Once your child gets past counting numbers, the next skill they will learn is addition and subtraction of small numbers, and then move on to multiplication and division. Many kids struggle with getting the hang of multiplication in the beginning, and some parents might shy away from teaching their children multiplication.
If you think that your child’s first introduction to multiplication will be the first day their teacher teaches them, this is where you are highly mistaken. Teaching theories, like other things, has gone through many changes and slowly evolved into what we have today. You can check the parenting web portal to learn more about this. Most notable among these new changes is the 2010 Common Core Standards Initiative which encouraged educators to teach in a more conceptual method; that is, students are taught for them to understand what they are being taught rather than just the theory.
This way, children do not just memorize the steps to find solutions. Rather, they understand the “why”, along with the “how”. Studies have shown that an in-depth understanding of how math is solved helps children scale through elementary and advanced math, and even their future careers. Today’s kids develop their number sense one step at a time, with simple activities from their everyday lives.
Use Real Life Examples to Teach Your Kids
Kids learn better when they are not aware that they are learning. One of the best ways to introduce young kids to multiplication is by showing them real life examples and pictures to illustrate. It is important that kids are able to connect the math problems they are solving to real life objects and problems. Draw pictures to represent the objects you want your child to count, or complete the simple exercises in these free printable multiplication worksheets.
Use Word Problems to Teach Your Kids
When introducing your child to multiplication, they will not be able to make sense of figures and problems given to them on a worksheet. Word problems are the easiest ways to make multiplication concepts more realistic for young children.
When reading out word problems to kids, make sure you go though the entire problem carefully, marking out important key words and the numbers needed to complete the math problem.
The Zero Rule
Teach your kids that no matter the number that is multiplied by zero, the product changes into zero. For example; 35×0 = 0, and 552×0 = 0. Teaching this concept early on is easy enough for both you and your child, and you can even use a catchy rhyme or song to help them memorize it.
The Adding Zeros Trick
Help your child understand the tick to multiplying 10s and other numbers that have zeros, such as 100 and 1000. For example, when multiplying 22×1000, the place value increases by three, making the product 22,000. It is important that your children understand place value before you teach them this trick.
In the past, multiplication seemed like too much of a daunting task; especially with the way the skill was taught. Memorizing multiplication tables, difficult multiplication problems, and being drilled constantly caused stress for a lot of the older generation, but the younger generation are lucky in that there are easier ways to get them more adept at solving multiplication problems.
