What would you rather memorize in order to know your multiplication tables, 10 items or 100? I say 10! Much of the way the multiplication is taught is through rote memorization. It’s possible that the reader learned multiplication in this way. One of the changes we need in math fact instruction is the use of alternate means of learning the math facts, as rote memorization is the pits! Enter symbol imaging.

My first introduction to symbol imaging was in language instruction. I was shown a technique whereby the pathways of letters were attempted to be burned into the brain, so to speak. The idea was that “sight words” would be recalled as if they were a picture, an image of beautiful letters. There were all kinds of multisensory movements, touch, and sounds that went with it. While there are many people who like this approach and learn by this, my experience was not one of success. This was my idea of symbol imaging, fun but failing.

So when I initially heard of using symbol imaging to learn math facts, I was highly skeptical. I really could not understand how this might be possible and how this could provide any type of improvement over flashcards, but I listened. I’m glad I did because it has changed everything I do related to math instruction, and more.

The key to symbol imaging, my layman’s term of burning an image into your brain, is that the image represents more than 1 concept. Let me go back, way back to 7th grade Spanish instruction. Mr. Valdez taught us how to conjugate verbs using symbol imaging. Did he tell us that? No. Did he know he was doing that? No. But here is what he did, which still persists with many world language instruction.

Although Mr. Valdez did not use any of these colors, I color-coded it to show my points below. He would write these 6 words on his green rolling chalkboard. The position and space he wrote them provided information beyond what was visible. The words in black were singular (I, you, he/she) and the ones in green were plural (we, y’all, they). The top white line across was first-person (I, we). The yellow line was secondperson (you, y’all) and the blue line was third-person (he/she, they). Of course, when he first wrote it on the board he had to explain the meaning of each position, but over time he just wrote them in this 6 box format. We would extrapolate the subject. This was a symbol image that gave you more information than what was actually written and seen.

The manner in which I teach multiplication has the same effect. The position in the picture intuits the factors. One image gives 9 math facts at one visual glance, without writing the factors. Therefore, in my instruction, we only symbol image 1 picture per multiplication table. There are 10 images to learn all the multiplication facts.

Contrast that with symbol imaging whereby each symbol image is one math fact. So for each multiplication table, you have to burn 10 images into your brain. Each fact is solitary, unconnected to the next image. To learn all the multiplication tables, you have to learn, hold, store and retrieve 100 images. This does not reduce the cognitive load for students beyond what flashcards do.

Personally, I’d rather just learn 10 images instead of 100. I think most kids would agree with me. Granted the images are more densely filled and the technique to image them is important. Practicing the retrieval of the image is most of what we do when symbol imaging multiplication tables. These are valuable tools our students need in learning math facts. And, yes, in case you are wondering, I use symbol imaging for addition, subtraction, and division as well. In my opinion, the use of symbol imagine is to gain more information than just the image itself that you are burning into your mind.