Do you really want to get your kids off to a fast start in math? Then they need to know some basic facts. Teach kids their addition and subtraction facts as early on as possible. Once conquered, move on to multiplication facts. Finally, start plodding into the territory of division. With the four pillars of arithmetic conquered, your kids will be on the fast track to academic success.

In my years of experience as a tutor and teacher, I always noticed that in working with the weaker students in math, they always struggled with the basic facts. These were the students who did not know how to do basic multiplication, and for whom fractions were an absolute nightmare. My challenge has always been, give me one of those students for a few hours per week for a month straight, and I will turn them into math animals—that is outstanding math students. How would I do this?

For one, I would start by drilling the basics of arithmetic into them. The first part of boot camp, so to speak, would consist of learning the basic facts about addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. ( See Arithmetic Magic) These students would learn not just how to do these operations, but the mathematical jargon associated with them, and extensions of the basic terminology to other areas in math. The relations between fractions, percents, and decimals would be shown and a mastery over fractions would be taught.

At this point, the students would be in a very strong position to be able to learn higher math more easily. Here is where I would introduce shortcut arithmetic methods and cool math tricks. Segueing into algebra, I would lead them into this fascinating realm by showing them the keys to algebra mastery (See my algebracadabra series here Algebra Ebooks). By then these kids would no longer be prisoners of math but rather wardens of scholarship. From this point, they would be able to master the sciences and everything in between. This is what arithmetic mastery can do. As Gauss said, “Mathematics is the queen of sciences, and arithmetic the queen of mathematics.”

Joe Pagano