How bad will it be to start Y7 not knowing times tables?

DD is in her third year of a maths degree (not so stealth boast - she's on target for a first ) and doesn't know her times tables. She wrote them out on scrap paper at the beginning of non calculator exam papers . So it hasn't stopped her, because she can work them out as quickly as if she actually knew them.

However, she agrees that primary and secondary maths would have been easier if she had been able to remember them.

We found this website useful as it visually shows the relationship between eg 6 x 8 and 8 x 6. Also the "sneaky hint" that you only need to actually learn a few. Eg the 2 x table is pretty easy, generally you know those ones. So 4 x is just double 2 x. Same with 6 x being double 3 x. 9 x is the "finger trick" mentioned below. 8 x is double double 2 x. and then you're left with 7 x as the only really difficult one (as 5 x and 10 x are also straightforward enough).

So if you can count in 2s, 5s and 10s, all you need to learn is 3 x and 7x. And you already know them as you've learned/worked out the opposite way round.

In a lot of cases it's "learning times tables" as a thing which sounds difficult and scary - turn it into sneaky tricks to avoid having to learn them, and often "as if by magic" they've sunk in .

Has she tried this one for learning 9x table? With both hands in front of you, palms up, tuck in the left thumb (1x9) the number of unbent digits is nine - 1x9=9. Now straighten thumb and bend index finger (2nd digit therefore 2x9). One unbent thumb before index finger and 8 unbent digits after reads as 18. This works all the way up to 10x9, and then you only have to memorise two more! Hope this makes sense, it is much easier to show people than write it. Both my DDs found this useful at primary and still use it now (15 and 13). Particularly useful when exam stress kicks in they have found.

Depends on why she doesn't know them.

If like DD1, she's dyslexic and they float off into the ether even when she does learn them, she'll fund a way to cope.

If she's simply never really bothered, then learning them is well worth it.

DD doesn't tend to make mistakes because she knows she needs to scribble tables in the margin, bht it is a pain and it dies waste time.

Then she needs to work out which ones she can remember (there must be some), the problematic ones, and work on those. Times tables songs might help, our brains are usually good at remembering lyrics. If she can't remember e.g. 69, can she quickly remember 59 and add on 9?

Not having instant recall isn't so much of an issue if she has strategies to work out a tricky few. But if she finds herself working out 5*9 by counting up in 5s on her fingers, then that will be a problem.

My Yr9 ds still doesn't really know most of his time tables but is doing very well in Maths. It would be easier if he did know them though.

Interestingly his maths teacher confessed that she doesn't know times tables very well either, so presumably it's not a massive barrier to doing well.

It will be bad, so get it sorted over the summer if you can. A bit of practice every day should make a big difference. There are games on the internet that can help with practice to make it a bit more interesting.

(I'm a maths teacher. People will say 'oh I never learned my tables and I as fine' but they are in a minority. Mainly kids who don't know their table struggle with stuff from fractions to algebra, and they lose lots of marks in tests by making silly mistakes,)

How is her grasp on multiplication generally? If you asked her what 15 x 10 was does she "get" that she just needs to add the zero onto the 15? And if you ask her to multiply something by four does she "get" that she needs to double it then double it again?

Knowing the rules (for want of a better word) for multiplying will serve her better than being able to recite them rote.

I started secondary not knowing very basic maths (my primary school were very focused on music/art and reading as we're my parents)

I found it incredibly hard, I was in top sets (not sure if they do this now) for my classes but maths I just couldn't keep up with, my friends had a level of knowledge above mine and I was still counting on my fingers!

Despite being a bit of a troublesome and lazy teenager who did little work but wrote well so got good marks, I remember revising really hard for maths GCSE - but just scrapped a C grade (thankfully to get into college)

I will make sure my children learn this and other basic math skills ASAP. I'm still hopeless now and it's embarrassing.

You can get by in secondary being ropey on your times tables, but life is so much easier if you know them in a usable way, for example to spot that 72 and 54 are both divisible by 9.

e.g.
for simplifying fractions, and fraction work in general.
when dealing with ratios
for HCF / LCM work
just in any question where you need to multiply or divide anything

If you don't know the times tables then by the time you have worked that bit out, you have forgotten where you were headed with the question. Or you can lose marks by making simple errors.

(My DD1 y10 struggles with basic maths even though she can solve simultaneous equations etc).

Well, life is sooo much easier if you do. And the less aptitude for maths you have the more helpful it is to know your tables.

Has your year 6 tried and not got them or not tried

My dd1 doesn't know all of her tables, despite us spending hours and hours going over them with her. She's 16 and has taken her gcse maths this summer. She's predicted a B grade but has been scoring higher on practise papers.