by Lanita Wasson

Created on: May 06, 2010   Last Updated: May 07, 2010

Colors Multiplied

Multiplication can be a difficult math skill to accomplish. Many students never master the quick recall of multiplication or division facts. Usually, teaching multiplication and division fact families is done in a rote manor. Writing, reciting, and quizzing on the facts until they are ingrained. Unfortunately, this method is not always effective, especially for someone with a strong visual ‘learning style’. An amazing new teaching technique created by a tutor in Little Rock, Arkansas, is fun, easy, and creative, using multi-sensory learning techniques.

Using a method of skip-counting, and color-coding. The student can more readily recall the multiplication and division facts. The student's memory is triggered by color and counting, which is done through a visual recall. Here are the simple steps:

1) Have your student skip-count by 2-7, in a series. Then have them repeat the process in reverse. It should look similar to this for instance for learning the multiplication & division facts of "3".

0, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36
36, 33, 30, 27, 24, 21, 15, 12, 9, 6, 3, 0

2) Next, have the student trace each number again beginning with the multiplies of "3" from 0-36, then again from 36-0 as seen on the above lines. All of these numbers should be the same color. An example is below: (Color-coded BLUE)

0, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36 
36, 33, 30, 27, 24, 21, 15, 12, 9, 6, 3, 0

3) After your student has completed these steps for the multiples of 2-7, have them color-code the multiples on a separate number chart for each of the fact families. You should make the chart in lines of 1-10, 11-20, 21-30; etc. until 144 which is 12x12. Your chart will look like this:

  1   2   (3)   4   5   (6)   7   8   9 10                          for "3" it would be 3x1 to 3x12
11 (12) 13 14 (15) 16 17 (18) 19 20
(21) 22 23 (24) 25 26 (27) 28 29 (30)                     This should be done for each fact family from 2-7.
31 32 (33) 34 35 (36) 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70
71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80
81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90
91 92 93 94 95

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