What This Book Actually Is
The Practice Makes Perfect series from LearningExpress covers a lot of ground, but the multiplication and division workbook for ages 9-14 is one of the few titles in the catalog that actually does what it promises. It's a straightforward drill-and-practice workbook aimed at kids roughly in the upper elementary through middle school range. The exercises progress from basic facts into multi-digit operations, then into word problems and fractions. Nothing fancy. I've spent more years than I'd like to admit grading these kinds of workbooks and watching kids use them. The ones that stick around are the ones with structured repetition and clear explanations. This one fits that category.
Multiplication And Division Ages 9 14 Practice Makes Perfect Series
The book is organized into chapters that each focus on a specific skill area. You get sections on multiplication facts, multi-digit multiplication, long division, short division, and then word problems that combine both operations. Each chapter starts with a short review of the concept before launching into practice problems. The answer key is in the back, which matters more than it sounds because kids who are self-studying need immediate feedback. Here's what most people miss when they're picking out workbooks: the difficulty ramp. Some books jump from 2-digit times 2-digit problems straight into 3-digit by 3-digit without much scaffolding. This one eases into it. The progression feels deliberate rather than random, which is the difference between a kid finishing a page frustrated and one who actually gets through it. I ran into a specific situation last year with a student who could multiply fine but would completely freeze on division problems that had remainders. The book handles remainders in a few chapters toward the end, showing them as both "remainder format" and as fractions. That dual presentation is worth something. A lot of workbooks gloss over it or skip it entirely, which means the kid never actually learns how to handle the answer.
The real test of any of these workbooks is whether the word problems are realistic or just pretend math dressed up as life scenarios. This one leans toward the latter sometimes. Problems like "If Sarah has 48 stickers and gives them equally to her 6 friends..." are fine for building the operation but don't teach anything about when division makes sense in context. I ended up supplementing those sections with actual word problems I pulled from other sources, mostly because the book's problems never go beyond the kind of clean-number scenarios that don't exist outside a classroom. One thing the book does well that deserves mention is its treatment of estimation. Before some of the harder problem sets, it asks kids to estimate the answer first. That habit saves time and catches calculation errors. I've seen kids who consistently get the wrong answer on long division because they never checked if their result was even close to reasonable. Estimation practice doesn't fix everything, but it fixes enough.
Get the Full Details
How to Use It Effectively
Don't have the kid power through the whole book in one sitting. That approach burns them out and the learning doesn't stick. Twenty minutes a day, three to four times a week, is plenty. The skill here is procedural fluency, and procedural fluency builds through spaced repetition, not marathon sessions. If a kid is stuck on a particular chapter, don't just move on. The workbook structure assumes linear progress, but that doesn't mean you have to follow it that way. Spend extra time on the chapter that's giving them trouble. The later chapters on multi-digit division build directly on the earlier multiplication sections, so gaps in the fundamentals will show up later. Fixing them early prevents frustration down the line. There's also the issue of answer checking. A lot of kids will flip to the back immediately after finishing a page. That defeats the purpose because they're not building the habit of self-correction. Have them finish the full page, then check. When they get something wrong, have them figure out where the mistake happened before moving on. Writing a quick note about what went wrong on the side of the problem takes thirty seconds and pays off over weeks.
The book assumes access to paper and pencil, which is fine. There are no digital components, no interactive exercises, nothing fancy. If the kid learns better with manipulatives or visual aids, layer those in. Base-ten blocks for multiplication, especially the area model approach, make multi-digit multiplication click for a lot of kids who struggle with the standard algorithm. The book explains the standard algorithm clearly but doesn't cover alternative methods, so parents and teachers need to fill that gap if the kid needs it.
Where It Falls Short
The book doesn't cover division with decimals. If your kid needs practice with that, you'll need a separate resource. The fraction content is decent but not exhaustive. For a student who's specifically struggling with dividing fractions, this won't be enough on its own. The word problem section is also the weakest part of the book. The problems are short, the numbers are too clean, and there's no real narrative depth. If the goal is to prepare kids for standardized tests, you'll want additional practice with longer, multi-step word problems that require more than one operation. This book touches on those situations but doesn't go deep enough for test prep. Another limitation: there's no diagnostic pre-test. You don't get a clear picture of where the kid stands before you start. A quick informal assessment on your part — maybe ten problems covering each skill area — will tell you which chapters to assign and which to skip. The book doesn't guide you through that, so you have to do it yourself.
The layout is functional but not particularly engaging for younger readers. Lots of white space, standard fonts, minimal graphics. Some kids find that boring and lose focus. If the kid is motivated, it doesn't matter. If they're already resistant to math practice, the visual monotony might add to the problem. In that case, pairing the workbook with a more visually rich resource for a few weeks can help rebuild interest before returning to the drill-heavy material. Overall, it's a solid workbook for its purpose. It's not a cure-all and it's not designed to be. The best results come from using it as part of a broader approach rather than expecting the book alone to close gaps. Kids who work through it consistently with supervision and occasional supplementation tend to show measurable improvement within a few weeks. Those who go through it without engagement don't, and no workbook will fix that on its own.
