Times Test

Over the past two weeks, the fourth-graders in my main placement have been learning strategies for two-digit multiplication. The classroom textbook offered up a number of methods for solving problems--using graph paper to help represent an array, breaking apart/partial products, the box method, and finally--almost as an afterthought--the standard algorithm. My master teacher decided to call it the "Mom and Pop" method, a nickname that pays homage to how the students' parents (likely) were taught. (Only then did it occur to me that I am, in fact, old enough to have a child in fourth grade. So is my teacher.)

All but a few of the kids struggled with Mom and Pop. I, meanwhile, had to think through each of the other approaches. I understood them, but to me, they involved so many extra steps! My teacher, however, explained that they really help students grasp the concept, and the more I worked with kids, the more comfortable I felt. It's been 30 years since I learned how to multiply, but I truly don't remember ever breaking apart numbers or adding up partial products. Working with this topic has helped me to think, too, about place value and about multiplication as an operation, beyond simply memorizing the algorithm.

Today, I stayed after school to work with fourth-graders who have been performing poorly in math. My teacher asked me to work with one girl from another class on the box method; I'd been feeling good about this strategy for the past week. In this case, though, I needed to teach it to a student who guessed at many of her multiplication facts and at what, for example, the tens place represents. I found myself deploying the various strategies and talking through concepts (no mention of the standard algorithm!); when the hour was up, she was making up problems, breaking apart the numbers and executing the box method herself. Now, I don't know how effective this session ultimately will be for her, but she seemed proud of herself, and I got to see how approaches that are largely unfamiliar to me can reach students right where they are.