Multiplication - 4 important things to do and teach

When we teach multiplication, it can feel easy to be a little overwhelmed by how to go about it. Text books can often include lots of different elements on one page and it can be hard to deconstruct and sequence the skills that children need to master.

1) Separate teaching skills from teaching tables

The first and one of the most important things that I would say is to separate out learning tables from the skills of multiplication. This is also the case for division. Teaching and learning tables and all of the associated tricks that go with them are a whole other blog post.

When children do not know their multiplication tables, teaching multiplication can seem tricky. Using visuals and scaffolds can make a huge difference here, particularly for children with learning difficulties, as it allows children to concentrate on the skill in question without having to worry about automatic recall of number facts.

2) Explictly teach that multiplication means grouping

I know it seems like I am stating the obvious here and for some children there will be no need to teach this. BUT for lots of children, in my experience, explicitly teaching and reiterating this is crucial. Do not presume this is intuitive.

Discovery led learning is very important for children and it may be that you don't teach this until after children have had a chance to explore multiplication and materials but do make sure children understand it and retain it.

3) Teach the commutative property of multiplication

In my class, I often talk about how being lazy in maths good, but only if it is smart lazy!! Teaching children that if I know 3 x 4 = 12, then I also know 4 x 3 = 12 can considerably lighten the cognitive load.

Of course, when teaching it, we don't just say it and then expect children to understand. We allow children to explore it and visually see it. Using arrays is the best way to teach this as children can simply turn the array to see it.

Teaching the commutative property also allows children to start making connections and grasping the concept of multiplication families.

It also means that when children see the relationship between 3, 4 and 12, it is not difficult to introduce division as the inverse of multiplication.

4) Teach the distributive property of multiplication

It is easy as teachers to feel a bit panicked when we hear the words commutative and distributive and that's before we even get to the word property. This is particularly true if our own experiences with maths were not great!

Some simple example of the distributive property would be:

3 x 7 = (3 x 5) + (3 x 2)

OR

3 x 7 = (3 x 4) + (3 x 3)

OR

3 x 7 = (3 x 6) + (3 x 1)

Again, teaching this visually is very important and arrays are the best way to introduce this. As children progress through school, they begin to use the distributive property in more complex and abstract formulae, but this is not necessary at this stage of their maths journey.

I find the distribute property really comes into own at these early stages of multiplication, when introducing 2 digit multiplication by 1 digit multiplication. For example:

14 x 8 = (10 x 8) + (4 x 8)

OR

23 x 8 = (20 x 8) + (3 x 8)

When children understand and can apply this easily, introducing the more formal multiplication algorithm is far easier.

Conclusion

As teachers it can be hard in the busyness of our days, to filter out and distil what the most important teaching elements are. In my experience, approaching the teaching of multiplication, keeping the above in mind can really help to ground understanding amongst younger pupils.