Details Make Math Facts Memorable

Which seashell is the easiest to remember?

Teachers know that simple tasks and straightforward instructions give students more ‘mental space’ for learning. Yet, when it comes to the content being presented, be sure to point out interesting details, numerical patterns, and fun facts that will stick in your students’ minds.

Information that helps students identify how each number or math fact is unique helps them recall that fact when needed. Anything that is memorable about a number makes it stand out in your students’ memories. Here are three examples:

1. Connect Math Facts with Personal Details about Your Students

Encourage your students to look for personal connections with each math fact. If they have three cousins on their mother’s side and five cousins on their father’s side, then remembering 3+5=8 just became a lot easier.

Letting students use their fingers (and toes?) is perfectly acceptable. As they grow older, they will internalize counting on fingers. How many high school students remove their shoes to count to twenty?

2. Connect Math Facts with Quirky Number Patterns

Do your students struggle with the times tables? Show them how to calculate digit sums. When they start adding all the digits in numbers together until there is only a single digit number remaining, your students will discover some unforgettable patterns. For example, the digit sum of 27654 is 2+7+6+5+4 which – if you keep adding – is 6.

Some of these patterns are used to determine divisibility of large numbers. Some are simply interesting and fun. All of them can be used to make multiples of certain numbers memorable. 

Multiples of Three and Digit Sums

 3                     3 

 6                     6

  9                    9

 12                     3   

15                     6   

18                     9  

 21                     3  

 24                    6  

 27                    9  

 30                    3  

3. Connect Math Facts with Properties of Numbers

You might want to invite your students to sort the math facts into groups according to whether the factors are even or odd. This works for addition and subtraction as well as multiplication and division. Recognizing math facts that follow certain number properties also gives your students information that can be used to check the accuracy of their calculations.

Have them make three piles of multiplication flashcards: one where both factors are even,  another where both factors are odd, and the third for math facts with one of each. 

Have your students work through each pile one at a time. They should notice the parity of the products as they work through each pile. 

Ask them what happened. When both factors were even, was the product also even? Every time? Really? What happened when both factors were odd numbers? What happened when there was an odd and an even factor?

Then, have your students add to their understanding of how the numerical property impacts math facts by asking questions such as  –

• Do you think this property (even times even equals even and so on) applies to large numbers, too? Why or why not?
• Why do you think these patterns occur?
• How could these number patterns help you remember your math facts?

Bringing your students’ attention to details that differentiate specific numbers, or groups of numbers from the crowd makes it easier for your students to remember those number bonds and math facts. The details give your students additional information to hang on to.