Super fast tip for times tables! Forget rote memorisation, try this hands on multisensory resource that frees up working memory, takes away stress and allows kids to get on with learning!
Here’s what Dyslexic Nik had to say about the Flexitable:
Hiya I just wanted to show you this Flexitable. Have you come across them? They are a flexible sheet of plastic and this one’s a times tables one and basically you fold them to whatever equation that you’re working on. So say we wanted to do five times four and if I fold it so we’ve got a five here and, where is it, the four down here and then you look along for your answer which is twenty
Now if you’ve got a child and you’re really struggling with rote learning of a multiplication tables maybe you sung them, you’ve bounced them on the trampoline, you’ve thrown a ball back and forward, you’ve coloured them in, you’ve done everything you can think of and they’re still not going in’ I would completely recommend trying this.
Don’t bother trying to rote memory times table. I still can’t do them, but this is awesome. So when they use this in their lessons not only does it free up their working memory to then concentrate on the rest of the equations and work that they’re doing and keep up with their peers, it takes away the pressure and the worry and all of that going over and over again the same thing.
With the multi sensory kind of being able to use it, the tactileness and folding it, those answers to the multiplication tables go into their long term memory and eventually you’ll find that they probably won’t need this as much, maybe just as a bit of backup. And you can even teach young people to write this table out and it looks a bit much like that, but you can actually do it in a couple of minutes, and they can write it on their scrap paper in an exam if they choose so.
If you go to their website they have this is the multiplication one, they also have 100 square and they have this very cool fractions one and basically it’s like a fractions wall. So it’s got one there it’s got point five, point three. So we’ve got decimals on this side, on this side we’ve got the equivalent fractions and percentages and the same thing, you can fold it up and look that you know one is the same as point five is the same as on the other side, 50% is the same as a half and so on and it goes right down here to twelves.
So Flexitables are a really useful simple resource that you can find on the internet. I’ll try and do a link to where you can get them. Anyway there you go. Flexitables, top tip!