Learning Multiplication Table Tricks for 9's

Question: My child cannot get his nine times tables down for the life of him. He needs to pass this last test and he is so hung up on this series that he has just freezes when the test comes. This cannot be unheard of with all of the pressure we place on kids to memorize things. We are almost to June and he wants to do this before school is out. How do you help a child give up a giant monkey he has placed on his back?

Answer:

Children often enjoy learning the secrets behind numbers and your son needs to relax a little and have some fun. Here are some fun tricks you can do with him:

First, have him make two columns of numbers right next to each other. Now have him write the numbers from 0-9 going down one column. In the adjoining column, have him write the numbers descending from 9-0 (making sure the two columns line up together). When he looks at the two columns now, he is looking at all of the answers in order to the nine times tables. Pretty cool, right? Now have him look at each of the answers in rows. Each row is not only an answer to the multiplication problem, each number in each row adds up to nine. 0+9=9, 1+8=9, 2+7=9, 3+6=9, etc. There is another fallback. Whenever you have a number multiplied by nine, the answer begins with one less than the number being multiplied. For instance, 9x5 will begin with 4 (45) and 9x6 will begin with 5 (54). Once the kids see this and then remember that each digit in the answer will add up to nine and can be found in the ascending and descending columns, it seems to fall into place.

Even if this sounds complicated in print, it is not difficult in practice. When I taught second and third grades I began with the 0 multiplication tables, then the 1’s, then the 9’s because they are fun and the students feel so accomplished in memorizing and understanding what is to them a large number for multiplication purposes. He’s done a lot of work in passing all of the other numbers, and nine is full of some of the fun and thinking that he will enjoy after all that rote memorization.