Excerpts from Sticks and Steps®

To Parents

It’s you against your kid. . .

It’s nine o’clock at night. You expect the evening struggle to begin — homework is not done. Your child says, “We’re learning about multiplication in class and I . . . don’t . . . understand . . . it!”

Usually about now you both begin to scream or cry in frustration, but this time it’s different. The new book you’ve picked up seems nothing short of spectacular.

To Teachers

The stakes are high. You know your students’ mastery of multiplication can make or break your math assessment scores. You’ve over-drilled their multiplication tables. “My students just can’t seem to learn!” you hear yourself saying. The next day a note says, “Billy cried last night — he just doesn’t understand multiplication.” Now it’s up to you to find a better way . . . students and parents . . . are counting on you . . .

The Beginning of Sticks and Steps®

My job as an exceptional-student educator is to be on the lookout for better ways to help struggling students. Several years ago, I worked with a fifth grade student who could not memorize her multiplication facts, let alone understand the concept of multiplication. She would resort to drawing tallies on paper hoping to get the answer. It was an embarrassment to her, and it was not fail-proof. Often, she counted tallies incorrectly and ended up with too few or too many. Despite her best effort, she was frustrated — and so was I.

My search for a better way began. The goal was to decrease my student’s tally counting errors. I also wanted my student to arrive at the answer quickly and not be hampered by her inability to memorize. With the method I developed, my student became very proficient with arriving at the answer quickly and easily. She ended the year with a smile on her face, knowing she mastered a special technique that her peers did not know. I called this method Sticks and Steps and I soon started to teach Sticks and Steps to my other students. I was amazed by how fast they caught on, and so the method was launched. Even my younger students now learn multiplication. If they can count, they can multiply — and get the RIGHT answer every time!

Why It Works

Multiplication can be thought of as layer upon layer of the same amount, added together. In order to master multiplication, it’s beneficial for struggling students to find a multiplication strategy that’s logical, tactile, and visually understandable. This multi-sensory method does not rely on memorization but rather on the ability to touch and count.

As students gain confidence with multiplication concepts, they will naturally want to jump ahead by skipping step counts they already know. Eventually, they may not need to use this method at all. But whenever answers to multiplication facts slip their minds, they know they can pull Sticks and Steps “out of their back pockets” to use at any time.