Where’s the Procedural Fluency?: U.S. Fifth Graders’ Demonstration of the Standard Multiplication Algorithm

Abstract

For elementary school children, learning the standard multiplication algorithm with accuracy, clarity, consistency, and efficiency is a daunting task. Nonetheless, what should be our expectation in procedural fluency, for example, in finding the product of 25 and 37 among fifth grade students? Collectively, has the mathematics education community emphasized the value of conceptual understanding to the detriment of procedural fluency? In addition to examining these questions, we survey multiplication algorithms throughout history and in textbooks and reconceptualize the standard multiplication algorithm by using a new tool called the Multiplication Aid Template.