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Tools for the Times Tables

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Tools for the Times Tables by Dr. Steve Chinn - Concept-based mastery of the multiplication tables. If rote memorizing of the tables is frustrating, here's a hands-on solution! 
Click here to view sample chapter

Tools for the Times Tables Workbook by Susan Jones, M.Ed. - Structured practice and even more examples to guide you through learning and understanding the times tables. A truly hands-on, interactive course to guide you step-by-step through mastering the concept of multiplication and the times tables from 1 to 10.
Click here to see a sample chapter

Understanding multiplication requires both a grasp of concepts and rote memorization. Tools for the Times Tables gives learners tools to understand multiplication concepts first, and then to recall the facts quickly and easily. Especially for students who are visual or kinesthetic (hands-on) learners, this book provides ways to quickly and accurately rebuild the facts without having to “count out” the answer.

Tools for the Times Tables moves through the fundamentals of multiplication in two sections. The first presents the times tables in a sequence designed to give the student quick, measurable progress to build confidence, while building multiplication concepts. The 0 and 1 tables are presented first, then the building blocks of the 10, 2, and 5 tables. This knowledge is used to build understanding and quick retrieval of the remaining facts. Along the way, students learn through hands-on experience, pictures and finally numbers about the concepts behind rules that usually are memorized but poorly understood. Understanding the commutative property, the student has seen, touched and experienced that 5 x 6=6 x 5, and job of “learning the times tables” is cut in half.

In the second section, each fact is presented with several ways to approach it; this way the student can find a way to tackle those “problem facts” which prove harder to master. Fun number facts, unique strategies and mnemonics are included so that the student and teacher have an arsenal of approaches to tap each individual's learning strengths.

How best to use manipulatives such as coins and number strips to build concepts and make the connection between the manipulatives and the numbers and symbols is explained in detail.

Tools for the Times Tables Workbook provides a wealth of practice, many pictures and examples, and even more strategies for building the concepts in Tools for the Times Tables. Through manipulatives, drawings, words, and example after example, students build the connection between what "times" really means in the concrete world and those symbols that they see in their math books.

The 145-page Tools for the Times Tables Workbook and 22-page teacher's guide are available either as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file, or as the printed version. Either way, you are free to make as many copies as your students need.

Tools for the Times Tables was developed by Dr. Steve Chinn, founder and headmaster of the Mark School for pupils with dyslexia in the United Kingdom. The school holds the prestigious Beacon School status. He is widely known for his experience in math and co-author of Mathematics for Dyslexics and other instructional materials. In 1984, he was visiting head of a specialist school in Baltimore, MD, where he got to know the team that edited Tools for the Times Tables for teachers, tutors and homeschoolers in the United States. Susan Jones was a teacher at that school in Baltimore, and applied her years of classroom experience to developing the Tools for the Times Tables Workbook.

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