how to memorize math facts

I have my girls do the MUS math drill online EVERY day to review their math facts.  It just keeps them fresh and helps cement them.  I have them tell me which facts they miss, so I know if there’s one that they are stuck on and can help them to think of a “trick” to get the right answer stuck.  My oldest is almost done with Gamma, and I have her do just multiplication because she is doing lots of adding and seems to have them all down.  The younger one is in Beta and does addition and subtraction every day – it takes less than five minutes – totally worth it and she doesn’t complain about it so can’t be too torturous!

Our dd was also having great difficulty memorizing her facts, despite the fact that I was using the MUS online drills daily, plus printing out additional worksheets. It was very perplexing because she could get the online drills 100% correct, but then not have a clue what the answers were to the very same problems on paper. I purchased the Rapid Recall system missceegee mentioned above. I love it because it presents the problems in several different ways: auditorily, on paper, and on flashcards with and without answers. It is very repititious, but so far it’s working well. According to Rapid Recall, it takes 21 repititions before a child has the answer cemented in his/her brain, so RR makes sure to give this many for each problem. We have stopped all our MUS lessons and are working just on RR’s Addition Facts and will do this probably until we’re done. Then we’ll go to RR’s Subtraction before resuming MUS. For good measure, I think I’m about to begin RR with our ds as well. He’s on MUS Gamma, but I’ve noticed that his addition and subtraction facts are getting a bit rusty and sloppy. Our long-term goal for math does not involve raising rocket scientists or math professors, so I’m not too worried about falling behind.

Hope that helps,

Lindsey