Examining differences between games and pictorial flashcards on multiplication basic fact fluency

This study examined a 6-week intervention in which fourth grade students either played fluency games or used pictorial flashcards to develop fluency with their basic multiplication facts. Students who played fluency games showed more growth than the pictorial flashcards, but an analysis of variance showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups. Additionally, pre- and post-intervention interviews indicated changes in students’ use of strategies when given basic fact multiplication problems. In the post-intervention interviews students used fewer earlier strategies (direct modeling, repeated addition, and skip counting). Specifically, students who used fluency games used more derived fact strategies along with direct recall, and students who used pictorial flashcards moved toward direct recall strategies with fewer derived fact strategies. The article concludes with implications for future development of students’ basic fact multiplication fluency.