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If there had been a Lucie Cossette to help me when I was learning the multiplication tables in school, I might now be a mathematician! In any case, Daniel Cossette is really lucky that his mother, who works with us as an analyst in Housing, Families and Social Statistics Division, took the trouble to devise a simple but ever-so-effective method for him to learn those darn tables by heart!

	Lucie Cossette with her new book. Photo: Pascale Therriault

A classic case

The story begins in 1995, when Daniel was in grade four and was struggling to learn the multiplication tables. Faced with a so-called “attention deficit disorder,” the boy was about to give up and see his self-esteem go out the window. He had tried everything: flash cards, games and exercises.

At that point, the ingenuity of his mother Lucie came into play. Refusing to be defeated by her son’s frustrations and lack of success, Lucie started looking for ways to solve the problem. She had noticed that Daniel could easily remember the visual details of, say, a film or even a road leading to a place where he had been only once. This gave her the idea of designing a method filled with visual clues. She included colours, forms, columns and symbols.

Daniel learned his tables in three weeks. He still knows them!

A simple and infallible method

The visual approach developed by Lucie for learning the multiplication tables is both simple and infallible. It is designed for both children and adults who, like me, have never managed to memorize all the 169 multiplications in the tables from 0 to 12 (thank heavens for calculators!). Lucie begins by explaining how, in fact, only 28 of the 169 multiplications have to be memorized. Then she associates these 28 multiplications with 7 simple and structured images that are easy to remember. By remembering these images, the learner sees the answer for each multiplication.

Do you want to learn more about this? Then why not get a copy of Lucie’s book, See and Learn Multiplication by Heart. It is available in both English and French.

The book

Early in the summer of 2000, while talking with a work colleague, Lucie had a chance to revisit her learning method. The colleague was looking for a teacher or summer school for her son, who was unable to memorize the multiplication tables. When you have tried everything, you have nothing to lose; Penny must have told herself when she accepted Lucie’s help. Well, to Penny’s great surprise, her son learned all the tables in just a few weeks! “I am still amazed at how easy it was for my son to learn his tables. That was more than two years ago, and he has never forgotten them,” says Penny.

Next it was the turn of the daughter of Danielle, followed by adults who did not know their tables, such as Linda and Ron. All succeeded in doing the impossible: learning the tables, and more importantly, remembering them!

Buoyed by these remarkable successes, and strongly encouraged by those around her, Lucie decided to publish her method.

Designer, publisher, sales rep

To devote herself fully to writing her book, Lucie decided to take a leave of absence from November 2002 to June 2003. When it came time to find a publisher, Lucie quickly realized that without a track record, it was not going to be easy to break into educational publishing. But there was no stopping her, and Lucie pressed forward. She founded her own publishing house, Les Éditions La Différence, hired a reviser, a translator (the book was first written in English), a graphic artist and a printer. Then, before finalizing the layout and going to press, she decided to seek the advice of an expert in the field, just to make sure that the approach that she was proposing in her book was clear and consistent.

Lucie contacted Nancy Vézina, a math education professor in the Faculty of Education
at University of Ottawa. “As soon as I started to explain my method to Ms. Vézina,” says Lucie,
“I sensed her enthusiasm. Math education researchers have long known that many children and adults have problems memorizing the multiplication tables. But no one had taken the time to find solutions to those problems. So
along I come with my method. Ms. Vézina was visibly impressed,” concludes Lucie with a broad smile. Ms. Vézina even suggested—indeed, strongly recommended—to Lucie that to formally validate the method that she had developed, she should complete an M.A. in education. Lucie plans to get started on this shortly.

In July 2003, Lucie finally holds in her hands the result of her long months of effort. At this point, she is finalizing the teacher’s kit, which when you read these lines, should be appearing in bookstores. Then, in November 2003, Lucie will officially launch the book and the teacher’s kit.

“I sincerely hope that no child or adult will any longer have trouble memorizing the multiplication tables,” says Lucie. They say it's never too late to get it right. For myself, I intend to finally learn my tables.