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My method of teaching the times tables is based on pattern recognition. Did you know there’s a relationship between pattern recognition and intelligence? 

I found the following on www.intelligencetest.com/questions/precognition.htm:

Out of all mental abilities this type of intelligence [i.e., pattern recognition] is said to have the highest correlation with the intelligence factor, g.  This is primarily because pattern recognition is the ability to see order in a chaotic environment . . .  Patterns can be found in ideas, words, symbols and images and pattern recognition is a key determinant of your potential in logical, verbal, numerical and spatial abilities.  It is essential for reasoning because your capacity to think logically is based on your perception of the logic around you.  Your pattern recognition skills are expressed verbally through your long term exposure to language and your mathematical and spatial abilities are based on your perception of numerical data and 3D objects.

 

The webpage presents five problems that can be solved through pattern recognition. 

Back to ”pattern recognition is the ability to see order in a chaotic environment.”  Don’t we feel relieved when we recognize a pattern when confronted with a chaotic environment?  We feel panicked and stressed in a chaotic environment.  Stuck in a long line at the movie megaplex?  You notice the line on the left is comprised mainly of families with children while your line has mostly adult couples.  Your brain takes this in.  It has found a pattern.  The line with the families will move more rapidly because there will be fewer transactions at the box office. You step into the left lane behind families and smile as your line moves more quickly than the other. You’ve made order out of chaos. 

We are happy when we make sense out of chaos.  We are frustrated when we can’t.  This is how many children feel when confronted with mastering the multiplication tables.  All those tables, all those math facts to learn.  For many children, the tables become a blur.  How to make order out of the chaos?  I believe my method of pattern recognition does just that. 

Experts, quoted in the Journal, fault the lack of rigor in high-school courses.  “High schools are the downfall of American school reform,” said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy.  “We haven’t figured out how to improve them on a broad scope and if our kids aren’t dropping out physically, they are dropping out mentally.”

Looking ahead, what can parents of elementary school children do to ensure this does not happen to their children when they reach high school?  Make sure your child reads at least at grade level, preferably above grade level.  Fill you home with books.  Read to your child.  At the same time, set the example by reading not only the daily news whether in a newspaper or on your PC.  Read for pleasure.  Go to the library together and pick out books. Make books a vital part of your life.  If you do this, your child will develop the necessary skills in reading and English.

As a former university English composition instructor, I can attest that the students who loved to read and were voracious readers had the greatest fluency in writing.  They knew how to compose coherent sentences and paragraphs and knew the rules of grammar.  They also had excellent vocabularies. 

Encourage your child to read across disciplines.  Bring home science books and history books to expand your child’s horizon.   Have a summer reading list.  If you’re child is going to be busy with sports in the fall, why not ask for next year’s reading list and have your child read some of these during the summer? If you begin this in the elementary years, you more than likely have turned your child into a good student.  Continue this in middle school.   In high school, have your child take AP course, the most rigorous courses.  If not available, seek a better school or supplement your child’s education with your own reading list. Take your child to museums if you live in a big city.  When you travel, seek these out.

Regrettably, reform in our schools comes slowly.  The teacher’s union is powerful.  It is resistant to change.  Good teachers tire of battling complacent administrators and leave.   Parents tire of battling administrators and opt to homeschool.  Whether you homeschool or not, recognize that YOU are your child’s first and primary teacher.  The school may schortchange your child but you as a parent should not.

……………………………………………The WSJ article can be found at:  online.wsj.com/…/SB20001424052748703824304575435831555726858.html -

It’s the first week of August and orders are trickling in. Either school starts early for many families or moms are taking the last weeks of summer to review the times tables with their third grader or maybe give their child a head start in math.

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Many parents remember mastering the times tables as a dread rite of passage in their childhood.  But it doesn’t have to be for their children.  My method is fun!  And not just because I, the author, think so.

I’ve received countless emails from moms telling me nothing worked till they tried my workbook.  Moms tell me that they never had to say, “You’re going to do 20 minutes of math every day this week.”  Their child needed no prompting after a few minutes of exposure to my workbook to become intrigued and continue working on their own.   Of course, this is what I’d hoped for.  I wanted my book to teach your child serious multiplication skills but be a fun activity book as well.   I wanted my workbook to be a real page turner!

If you have a story to share about your child and my workbook, please submit if.  I love hearing from you.

             Image from bettertheworld.com.

Little Rabbit Foo Foo, a storybook by Michael Rosen, charmed my  three and four-year old grandchildren. No matter how many times we read it, they couldn’t wait to turn the page and see Little Rabbit Foo Foo bop yet another creature on the head despite Good Fairy’s warnings!

Within one afternoon, they had memorized the book and knew when to turn the page. My daughter grew up with the song/game so it was fun to see her children enjoy it so. The illustrations by Arthur Robins of Rabbit Foo Foo riding through a forest on a motorbike, red mallet poised in the air are delightful as is the put-upon Good Fairy. For the children, it was thrilling to see naughty Rabbit Foo Foo defy the Good Fairy but there were consequences.  Your little ones will love it!

Be sure to also teach your children the game.  Children sit in a circle and recite the verses as a child in the role of naughty Little Rabbit Foo Foo circles the group and then lightly taps one of the children on the head who in turn becomes Rabbit Foo Foo.

At book fairs, some parents tell me they weren’t particularly good at math.  Some will go even further and say they hated math. Some go even further than that and say, “My daughter’s a dummie in math like me.”  What’s shocking to me is they tell me this with their child standing at their side.  STOP and think what this message conveys to your child:

·     Mom/dad wasn’t good in math so maybe I won’t be either.

·     Mom/dad wasn’t good in math and doesn’t expect me to be good in math either.

·     I’ll show up mom/dad by if I do well in math.  They won’t like it if I’m smarter.

If you say YOU hate math, be aware you are shaping your child’s attitude toward math, particularly if you’re a mom speaking to a daughter.  Your daughter loves you and seeks to be just like you.  She may pick up the false message math isn’t for girls.  Now most moms would never say, “I hate reading.  I hate books. I haven’t read a book since high school.”  Yet somehow it’s okay for parents to disparage their math skills. 

If YOU say your child is a dummie in math like you, you are setting your child up for failure.  Your child may choose not to disappoint you.  Like mother, like daughter?  Like father, like son?

My recommendation:  do not to share your negative math experience with your children but encourage them.  If you feel you must share this experience, frame it this way:

·      I had trouble with math but you won’t because you have a parent who really cares about your success in math and will help you.

·      Your teacher also cares about your success in math and will help you. 

·      You have resources I didn’t have such as fun workbooks, video tutorials, multiplication CDs and math video games.

My point is:  your negative experience should not influence your child.  Although you had a negative experience, you expect your child to have a positive experience.  You expect your child to succeed in math.  Your child will fulfill these expectations.  There are few parents who do not have the basic skills to make sure their third grader succeeds in math.   Do not project your negative experience onto your child but rather give him or her the extra help and reassurance your child needs to succeed. 

                      Image by Robert Hunt/istockphoto.com

                                                                                                                                                        I imagine all of you celebrating the Fourth with friends and family today.  Watching our wed by some impressive homemade floats, I thought of years past with my two children.

Now it’s my five grandchildren who dress up like prairie  girls, Pilgrims and Statues of Liberty.

This evening I will picnic on the lake with my family and watch the fireworks.  It’s a wonderful day to celebrate with family. 

I wish you and your family a Happy Fourth!  

 Images from honna.org, eats.com, cohomepages.com.

Discover the beauty of patterns in the natural world. Look at the structure of  a starfish or  a chambered nautilus? 

A starfish has five points.  If we measured each point of the starfish, would they be the same?  Why is a starfish named starfish?  Is its shape similar to a star?  Does it have the same pattern?

If  we look at the structure of a chambered nautilus, we discover a nearly perfect equiangular spiral.   Why does each chamber become increasingly  larger as we spiral from the center?  Is it because the nautilus as it grows expands its living space, adding more and bigger chambers in an every increasing spiral?  The body, of course, would live in the biggest chamber of its “house.”

Let’s look at the shell’s outer surface.  There’s a brown zebra stripe pattern on top and yet the bottom of the shell is white?  Why would this be?  Nothing in nature is random.  The brown zebra stripes on top act as camouflage.  Seen from the top by predators, the nautilus blends with the ocean depths.  When seen from below, it blends with the light coming from above.  Its shell is hard.  When the nautilus is threatened by predators, it withdraws into its shell and seals the door.  Did you know chambered nautilises existed 265 million years before dinosaurs roamed the earth?  These beautiful nautilises are described as living fossils.  Why?  Because they have remained virtually unchanged for millions of years.  So their beautiful design was perfect from the start!  In nature, patterns serve a function.  Patterns help the animal fool its predators and survive.

Our innate curiosity leads to discovery.  Stimulate your child’s curiosity by pointing out patterns in the natural world.  Explore the wonder of nature with your child. 

Although we now have the internet and can look up anything to explain the mysteries of nature to our children,  for a young child there’s nothing like books or magazines with photographs and illustrations to captivate his/her imagination.  A child turns the page at his own pace.  Best of all, he/she is there cuddled up with mom or dad.

Images  from thehealingsprial.co.uk, belljarblog.wrodpress.com and huronscuba.com.

When I wrote my Teach Your Child the Multiplication Tables workbook, I wanted to create the excitement of a circus.  I wanted each page to be as REAL as possible. I had my graphic artist, Rudy Rodriguez, create the cute circus animals and clowns.  I thought it fitting that Rudy the Ringmaster be named for him.

To make the times tables REAL, I used grids.  Children can immediately see how the multiples increase from 1 x 1 to 10 x 10.  This develops number sense.  On a grid, they can see that 5 x 5 really equals 25 squares.  Some children will quickly fill in the tables on the grid so I included circus figure watermarks for children to trace.  I wanted to entertain children as they learned the  times tables.

Children who have an aptitude for math often have an aptitude for art.  Because we were working so much with grids, I asked myself: Why not take the opportunity to teach basic drawing at the same time?   We included eight pages of “copy the circus character on the grid”.   I wanted a workbook that was also a fun activity workbook.  I wanted a workbook that children couldn’t wait to work in.

The first mom to receive a copy of my workbook took it with her on the family’s beach vacation.  She told me her son promised to work on it 20 minutes a day.  She knew she’d have to interrupt his afternoon each day.  But to her surprise her son came out of his room after his nap with the workbook in hand.  Rather than napping, he’d been filling it in.  “I never had to ask him to do his math homework,” she said.  “But to get him to nap, I did have to take the workbook away.”   At that moment, I knew my book would be a success!

Reading to your children not only enhances their vocabulary but also stimulates their imagination.  If you have a passion for reading, your child will too!  Reading to your child is not only fun but creates a special bond between you and your child.  Please add your child’s favorite book in the Leave a Reply box below so that other children will enjoy these too.

        Here’s a  favorite multiplication book: 

    BUNCHES and BUNCHES of BUNNIES  by Louise Matthews, published by Scholastic with delightful illustrations by Jeni Bassett.

    Your child too will have fun reading about these cute, silly little bunnies while learning basic principles of multiplication.  Each page illustrates what happens when you square a number, that is multiply a number by itself  (1 x 1,  2 x 2,  3 x 3, etc.)   till we end up with 144 bunny relatives living in one house!  Each multiplication has a four line poem with a cute, memorable rhyme such as:       

                                 Count the bunnies at the ball,

                                 Rabbit partners, short and tall,

                                 Now the music comes alive,

                                 And 5 x 5 is 25.

See what happens to Jack when a wizard gives him two golden seeds and tells him to eat one and bury the other.   Jack’s planting these seeds introduces children not only to the concept of multiplying but also investing in the future.  As Jack reaps more and more abundant harvests, he marries and has a child.  When a hurricane wipes out his crops, Anno is able to begin anew because ten golden seeds have been saved. 

This enchanting tale entertwines literature, art and math concepts.  Parents and teachers will reap rewards with this book.  Why not stimulate interest in math by seeing mathematical concepts in an a enchanting “real world” storybook context?     The beautiful illustrations alone tell the story.  The youngest of your children too will be turning page after page.