Reply To: Lesson 4-2: Automaticity vs. Memorization

[Marion Mulgrew]

I think about watching kids “skip count” by fives on their fingers (yes, I am in middle school and yes, this is common…), but they don’t do it for other numbers. We have the “nine’s trick”, but when I see kids using it, they aren’t thinking about 4 groups of 9, just putting down their 4th finger so they have 3 and 6 for 36. I feel like this is an area that would help older kids make better connections and be less of a “trick”. Also I like the idea of group counting up and down to pre-build the multiplication/division connection. Very often I will hear kids say they can multiply but not divide.

The concept of unitizing makes so much sense for how it ties in to fractions and can be used (hopefully) to help demystify them even more.