Dominic O'Brien is an eight times world memory champion and has brought the subject of memory to the forefront of the media.
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.
What is the relevance of this in terms of learning your times tables you may ask yourself?
To become world champion he had to memorize lots of numbers.
Obviously Dominic had to find a trusted method to enable him to achieve this amazing feat.
His view on numbers is one which is very interesting because it is shared by so many people.
Dominic's view was numbers can look cold and unfeeling, thus making the numbers more difficult to remember for people.
If children regard numbers as cold and unfeeling, they will not want to learn their times tables.
Numbers can be difficult to remember if people think the numbers are cold and unfeeling.
Numbers are not as easy to group together as words are, therefore making memorizing more difficult.
His thoughts are that it is so much easier to remember numbers if you attach an emotion, an image or a person to the them.
It therefore makes sense for people to remember numbers by turning the numbers into an image or a person.
He made numbers come to life by turning them into interesting memorable people.
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.Very few brilliant memory records would have been achieved if the existing champions had used the rote learning method to remember.
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.
Any child's confidence will grow when they use this quick and efficient method.This is the first part of the secret of the memory champions in learning times tables.
For more information on times tables, goto www.timestablesmaths.com.
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