Both my kids learned to skip count — I wish I could take it back.
We dutifully taught skip counting. The sweetest musical ditties filled our car everywhere we went. I have a particularly fond memory of a road trip through New Mexico while the whole car sang — As we dance we concentrate, as we calculate the multiples of 8, even my husband.
But then the weirdest thing happened.
Starting around 3rd grade, my oldest fell apart in math. It took longer than it should, but I figured out she did not have her math facts down (multiplication/division). I was confused. Didn’t we just spend the last two years memorizing skip counting songs? Shouldn’t we have these? But she didn’t.
Catching up wasn’t pretty. There were flashcards and worksheets. Those of you that follow me know that I don’t typically resort to those types of activities. But she needed it, so we did. Things improved from there, but honestly she never fully recovered from that early strain. I figured it was just her.
But then another funny thing happened.
My youngest had the exact same problem. Then my nephew. Then my friend’s kid. I started thinking. Maybe it’s not these kids? Maybe it’s the way they are being taught?
You might think that knowing your “times tables” isn’t all that important, but it’s actually a really big deal.
An 8 year, longitudinal study of more than 4,000 U.S. and U.K. students found that early knowledge of multiplication and especially of division and fractions predicted high-school math achievement years later. This was true even after accounting for IQ, working memory, and socioeconomic status.
In other words, how your child handles early math follows them throughout their whole academic life. Moreover, the effect snowballs. Students who master math facts early pull further and further ahead, while those who do not fall further behind because later topics build directly on fluent retrieval.
According to the latest NAEP results, a staggering 72% of US 8th graders are NOT proficient in math.
It is clear that math facts set your kids up for future mathematical success, but is skip counting the best way to learn them?
Skip counting, sometimes called “count-bys”, is not new. It’s been a part of math curriculums for at least a hundred years. But since the introduction of Common Core, there’s been a noted change in emphasis and scope. Since at least the 19th century, kids have been learning to skip count by 2s, 5s, and 10s. These tasks had a variety of uses outside of arithmetic, for example clocks and money use 5s and 10s. They are also… super easy. Most kindergarteners can learn them. I know a precocious 3 year old that already knows his 10s.
Common Core put skip counting into focus making it a requirement for all students, but wasn’t Common Core that asked for more; it was the curriculum companies. The goal was perhaps a noble one: ensure children understand what multiplication is conceptually. Memorizing math facts alone can make multiplication rather abstract. Skip counting makes clear and obvious what multiplication is.
Curriculum companies seemingly asked if skip counting 2s, 5s, and 10s was good… skip counting 3s, 4s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s, 11s, and 12s would surely be better right? However, those sequences are far less intuitive than 5s and 10s, and they require a lot more focused effort and practice to learn.
PS. Before you say, Oh surely they didn’t expect you to memorize them? They do. I’ve been through two curriculums that expect memorization, and my nephew has been in public school his whole life. It’s expected.
Time spent learning to skip count is time not spent learning times tables.
The added emphasis on skip counting was never formally evaluated. To my knowledge, no large-scale randomized trial has shown that skip-counting practice improves math facts. Some smaller studies have evaluated children with learning difficulties (especially working memory disorders e.g. ADHD) and shown that skip-counting can act as a temporary, and often important, scaffold. But higher order mathematical reasoning requires rapid retrieval of math facts…. something skip counting doesn’t appear to deliver.
With skip counting, every time a child needs to do a multiplication problem, they must skip count up to that number, in my children’s case often while singing. To get 8 x 7, they must think — 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, got it! — instead of simply saying 56 in a microsecond. Math fact recall is clearly superior.
The psychology of learning skip counting first also matters.
The hardest part of pouring time into learning skip counts was that then we had to do it again. It was demoralizing for my kids. It felt like a punishment. They thought they were doing great, and all of a sudden they felt behind (and they were).
Third grade is a make-or-break year for many kids.
There is a noted shift in math instruction intensity as kids turn nine. Kids go from adding numbers and learning what a square is to completing 2-3 digit multiplication problems. All the more reason for foundational skills like math fact fluency to be a top priority before kids get there.
Instead most curriculums expect children to learn multi-digit multiplication at the same time they are still building basic fact fluency. Their working memory is overloaded, and it makes the whole process feel far harder than necessary. Second grade is when memory systems, including hippocampal structures, are near peak development. My children should have spent 2nd grade learning their math facts making 2-3 digit multiplication far simpler.
What about strong math kids? Does it matter for them?
Today, my youngest is nearly 2 grades ahead in math, but 3rd grade? It was a slog. She was quick, so it took even longer to recognize she didn’t have her math facts. She was just skip counting at lightning speed. I noticed the same of my nephew this summer. He skip counts so fast it appears he knows his math facts, but he doesn’t. Once I focused hard on math fact recall, my daughter accelerated so fast it still astonishes me.
But two years later, I still catch her defaulting to skip counting. Our brain treats the way we first learned something as more important - a phenomenon called primacy. Teaching her skip counting is still impacting her math progress as she prepares to enter pre-algebra!
If my accelerated, strong math kid stumbled, imagine what happens with kids for whom math is a struggle.
The pattern is clear: heavy early reliance on skip counting creates an unnecessary detour that makes later math harder than it needs to be.
So let’s chart a new path.
Introduce skip counting briefly as a conceptual tool. Sing a few songs, it’s fun! Then move quickly to mixed, rapid, randomized, retrieval-focused practice (more on best practices below).
For kids like mine who already over-rely on skip counting, start on retrieval practice today, and you can still rewire the habit. The earlier the shift, the less the snowball effect works against them.
There’s no better day than today.
6 Tips to Maximize Math Facts Mastery
1. Start When The Brain is Ready (for most, ages 6-8)
The best time to teach math facts is when the brain is primed for memorization—usually around ages 6-8. The hippocampus (the memory center of the brain) is the only part of the brain that can grow new cells during childhood. The hippocampus is still growing and developing in these early years and is primed to memorize! Waiting too long (e.g., 4th-5th grade)