subject: The secret of the memory champions and times tables [print this page] The secret of the memory champions and times tables
There have been a few memory champions, one of the most famous ones was a man called Dominic O'Brien. He had an incredible memory and won the world record eight times.
Memorizing 54 packs of cards is the amazing feat Dominic accomplished to gain a place in the Guinness Book of records.
To gain his place he memorized a pack of cards in 38.29 seconds.
These are incredible feats but what relevance do they have for learning times tables?
Well to begin with, Dominic had to memorize a massive amount of numbers to become a world champion.
Obviously Dominic had to find a trusted method to enable him to achieve this amazing feat.
Many people have the same perspective about numbers that he does.
Dominic's view was numbers can look cold and unfeeling, thus making the numbers more difficult to remember for people.
If children have the same bleak view as adults, they will find it difficult to learn times tables.
Holding this view makes numbers difficult to remember.
Dominic's view is it is not as easy to group numbers together as it would be if you had words that represented something.
By grouping the letters together you could have an emotion, an image, or a person which is easy to remember.
So that was precisely what Dominic did, he turned the numbers he was memorizing into images or a person.
Once Dominic had accomplished this he found the numbers came to life and were so much easier to memorize.
Using this method he managed in 5 minutes to memorize 360 random numbers.Dominic and other memory champions who have set the memory records are not geniuses or 'savants'.
The amazing memory records were achieved by simple techniques.
It is a known fact that children have always learnt their times tables by rote.Imagine if the memory champions had learnt using rote learning , very few outstanding records would have been met.
Children using the methods used by Dominic and other memory champions would have a huge advantage if they too knew how to apply the techniques.
Imagine the confidence your children would have if they could easily remember the times tables.You have now learnt the first secret in learning times tables from the memory champions.
