Five Times Five Is Not Ten: Make Multiplication Easy, Single Digit Multiplication Facts, Workbook for Gr 2-4, Reproducible Practice Problems

Facts are extremely important - in my opinion, they are the foundation for excelling in harder math, particularly in middle school. Even to work a "simple" long division problem, it could take ten minutes if a child has to really sit there and contemplate each separate division, multiplication, and subtraction fact required to find the answer to the long division problem.My children all became fluent in math facts, and have all been in accelerated math in school ever since. My definition and test of fluency is this: Using flashcards, purchased separately, I set a timer for double the number of seconds as there are flashcards. So if there are 20 flashcards, they have 40 seconds to get through them with correct answers. If they cannot do this, they need more practice.I used this book successfully with multiple children, each whom needed a different amount of repetition before they had the facts completely mastered.This is how I used it:They would complete one page per day. (Most lessons are 4 pages.)As we went along, if I was noticing they were struggling with a certain fact, I would go back to that fact and photocopy the pages again, and they would re-do them (1 page per day).At the end of the book, I would test them with flashcards, and for any facts that weren't instant recall, I would re-copy the pages with that fact and they would continue doing 1 per day until they had enough repetition to get them down fluently.Some kids went through the book once, and some multiple times. I had one daughter who did it for several years, but eventually she pulled through. (The author also emailed me personally with help, which I appreciated!)Ditto all of this with the addition/subtraction book (Two Plus Two Is Not Five), which I recommend just as strongly. By the time they have multiplication facts fluent, division is pretty easy. No one got hung up on the division book, though we did complete it still.I recommend continuing this throughout the summer, as taking 3 months off from memorizing facts will definitely set them back and you'll have to repeat some in the fall that you already did in the spring.Great books!!!

I don't like all the "tricks", but I do love the systematic review. I highly recommend the Times Tales DVD for quick memorization of the upper multiplication/division facts.

I disagree with the reviewer that said that this is just another workbook. What makes the method different is not the tricks, as they can likely be learned for free elsewhere, but the constant review and repetition of previously learned facts on a daily basis. If you take a look at the sample pages, you'll see that each of the facts being practiced on a given page is repeated six to eighteen times, depending on how recently the fact has been learned. At the beginning of any given page, a child may have to recall the trick to remember a fact, but after recalling the fact so many times on one page, recall becomes automatic quickly. I hope that the author offers a division book to accompany this one at some point, but my children learned their division facts easily after learning their multiplication facts so thoroughly.I highly recommend this book!

This is s really, really easy to use book. It lays out the multiplication problems from 1X1 to 10X10 in a very logical an slowly progressive way that did not overwhelm my child. My child is a slow learner and needs a lot of repetition. This is the only thing that has ever worked for teaching multiplication. It gave my child a great sense of accomplishment and all of the basic multiplication facts were learned in three months of daily use of this book.

My daughter finished third grade without a firm grasp of her multiplication facts and also still shaky on her addition and subtraction facts. She has been working through this book and the companion addition and subtraction book over the past month, and finally, finally she is memorizing her math facts. It's clear to me that she doesn't learn by rote memorization, and these books give her something to grasp as she learns each fact. I highly recommend this for any child for whom flashcards and drills alone don't work.

It has a few tricks, some of which really weren't much of a "trick" at all (like doubles: double the number. Ok, yeah). But, mostly it was just a workbook with progressive facts. Lots of practice problems, and a couple cute mneumonic techniques, but nothing spectacular.There are many other products out there that are way better at teaching these facts. The Flashmater, for example, is a device simple to use and is way more fun for the student. Times Tales is a program that has a DVD that teaches visual mneumonics to memorize math skills, and a flip book to make them really stick.This just has lots and lots of practice problems, and a few little tricks to help them stick.

I loved the way this book was organized with constant review of addition and subtraction facts at the same time the student is learning multiplication. When a student is having difficulty remembering the basic math facts, constant review is crucial. Having both the horizontal and vertical format used throughout the book eliminates the possibility of recognizing questions in only one format. The absence of pictures is really great as so many kids who are having difficulty with math facts can be so easily distracted with images they would rather color or play with rather than concentrating on the task at hand.

My 6 year old is just starting to learn multiplication and this is a great book (along with two plus two is not five). I find the tricks wonderful for helping to learn your times tables. For example: 7 X 8 = 5,6,7,8 (answer is 56). That is just in the first couple of pages and was something my son could immediately remember. I never heard of any of these tricks as a child and consequently do not easily remember all the facts myself.