Reply to 3rd Grade and Multiplication

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
MCPS starts multiplication in a slow way in 3rd grade (more towards the middle of the year). It is reviewed again in 4th grade, and the 5th grade teachers remind parents that students need to know their basic math facts with rapid recall.

I would strongly encourage you to start working on multiplication as soon as possible, in a regular way, so that your child knows it off by heart. It will make word problems and multi-step processes so much easier, by freeing up brain space for working out the rest of the question.

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Please don't do this.

It's important that kids have opportunities to explore multiplication concepts, and work with manipulatives, arrays and repeated addition to figure out problems before they start to memorize their facts.  Memorizing math facts is important, but there is plenty of time to do it if you start in the second half of 3rd grade and 4th grade after they've had those experiences.

Kids who learn memorization first, before they explore the whys of multiplication, can end up with brittle understandings of multiplication, which will trip them up when they get to higher level math in middle school.

-- a teacher  [/quote]

+1. The reason so many parents struggle to help their kids with math these days is because we weren't taught to truly understand it, just to memorize it. Don't let you kids fall into the same trap.[/quote]

I'm 18:13 and I couldn't disagree more. There is a documented problem these days with kids lacking rapid recall of basic math facts. This is directly tied to the lack of encouragement they have at school to learn their facts quickly.
MCPS, and other school districts, slow down the math curriculum, not in itself a bad thing, but they make it a bad thing because their worksheets are unimaginative. They lose so many kids that way! If the teachers were offering them brainteasers and challenging ways to solve problems with basic operations, that would be wonderful. Except they don't, unless the kids are in the Highly Gifted Center. 
First there is plenty of time in 3rd grade or before 3rd grade to work with manipulatives and other concrete displays for multiplication. My Kindergartner in Montessori is learning multiplication by manipulatives. These things can be taught at a very young age. There is no "developmental barrier".
Second even if there wasn't, there is actually virtue in memorizing and rote learning and copying. This has been pooh-poohed in the past, but research shows that memorization helps the brain to liberate more "solving power" for problems necessitating higher order thinking skills. So instead of getting bogged down by trying to recall basic operations, the student can focus on the actual problem, and organize of the logical steps to solve it.

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