to be surprised that so many people do not know their times tables

[moffat]

I am on a Primary PGCE course and was very surprised in a Maths session when loads of students (ie trainee teachers) said that they didn't know all their times tables. Not being judgemental but I suppose with people using calculators/spreadsheets so much there is no need to memorise them all. Just wondered whether this was the norm.

Maybe there was a fashion when they were pupils against teaching times tables? Daft. It is jolly useful if you just know 7 x 8 = 56 without having to actually think about it.

As a parent, tables are a bug bear of mine. It would be really interesting to know how the teaching of these are taught to teachers.

DDs now seem to do them sporadically although one teacher did encourage DD1 and DD2 (they both had her, she is lovely ) to do their tables 'on the click' so that you had to give an answer in the time it took to click your fingers. She did this for the number bonds as well.

I remember doing tables rigorously in P3 (to 12 x 12 - they only seem to do 10 x 10 these days!). We had a special book with all the grids for us to fill in and each week(?) or so we did one to distraction. As a consequence I know them very well but it was dinned in over time with a lot of chanting and testing.

I sometimes just feel too old........

I'll admit I don't know mine.

I've had them drilled into me enough...we had to learn them at school, and my mother made sure I knew them then...but I haven't retained them.

I relearned them all over again when I was an au-pair, looking after 7 & 9 year old girls, so I used to know them even in German.

I think it must be that I don't want to know them for some unobvious psychological reason.

You can track it to the point when schools stopped teaching times tables.

My dad, for example, was taught to chant them. 1 times 2 is 2 2 times two is 4...

So he can pull out any combination because it's burned into his brain.

otoh, I am the generation of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10... which means I have to go through the entire table, doing repeated addition, to get to the one I want.

We were both taught times tables. He can pull them out, I can't. So it is method of teaching that has caused this, imo.

i am number illiterate = i haven't got that maths dylexia thing, im simply thick.

i can do 2,3,4,5,6,9,11,12

6 & 9 would be very slowly

i don't know 7 and 8 unless i count it out

I got taught them but can't remember them. And it hasn't made life in any way difficult.

I'm not keen on learning things so that you know them by memory alone, I'd rather understand them. Especially as I have never had a good memory for numbers. I can't see a real use for knowing the times tables by heart.

I reckon I can do most of them, most shaky on 6, 7, 8 and 12.

They do come in handy imo and I speak as someone who was rubbish at maths and struggled to pass GCSE.

Do children not learn them anymore? I was looking forward to brushing up when dd gets to school age!

I am a Maths teacher, Maths degree, 2 Maths Alevels and I learnt my times tables when I started teaching! I used to work them out as necessary. As someone who has a good feel for numbers this was pretty easy. I was at Primary school in the eighties when we didn't learn them that much!
Ihave taught children who can recite them off by heart but if you ask them how many 3s in 15 they don't have a clue - applying what you know is more important than rote learning of facts with no understanding.
If you know your 2,3,5 times table you can work it all out from there apart from the one to learn
"wakey wakey rise and shine, 7 x 7 is 49"
Nobody needs to know 9s as you do it on your fingers. 11s also have an easy rule even up to 99 x 11.

I guess they were drilled into me as I don't even have to think about them - they are automatic. My DC have also been drilled to know them, although DS1-14, who has dyscalculia cannot remember them from one day to the next.

I think they are worth knowing and use them a lot.

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I must be the same age as Hectors dad.

I suspect many people don't know their tables because, once you leave primary school, they are no longer tested. Knowing your tables makes solving maths problems easier and quicker, but it is possible to get by without them. I must have been off school the week we had to learn the eight times table because I don't know it - I have to double the 4 times table.

Teachers should know them, though - how difficult are they to learn if you need to?

I know mine.

We had a mad maths teacher in secondary school who also attempted to teach us up to our 25x table. I haven't retained all those though.

My husband doesn't know his, and he is a genius with a maths degree(!). He says they are impossible to remember, and there is always an alternative mathematical strategy to get the answer he needs. I think that is insane though.

My son (age 8) who is also very very good at maths, is finding them difficult to retain. So maybe some people do just find them impossibly hard.

I don´t know mine off by heart either

Other than 9x which is easy.

I tend to have a "jumping off point"

I know my tables and was taught them by rote, same way as Hector's dad.

we used to walk round the classroom chanting them and clapping.

sometimes now i have have problems recalling.

although i can do 15s without evening blinking.

I was taught them but I hated maths at school and it's stuck with me. If I have to work something out on the spot like a multiplication, I panic.

I've got my infant school teacher and her ritual humiliation of pupils without a natural aptitude for maths to thank for that.

I'm not surprised trainee teachers don't know times tables because I regularly come up against people that can't do simple subtraction, addition or other basic mental arithmetic... which is what we're talking about. Barstaff used to be a fabulous exception until pubs introduced those itemised tills and reduced their brains to mush. If it weren't for the mathematical agility of darts enthusiasts (give me a three dart finish for 147, anyone?), I'd be quite depressed.

Have just been testing myself on 7 and 8 times tables and was surprised at how well I remembered them. Mind you, in situations where people ask what's x times y, I just keep quiet/look dumb until someone else answers if one of the numbers is bigger than 12. I was taught tables and tested frequently in P4 or 5, but Dad also used to test me and insisted my sister and I learn up to 12 even though school only taught up to 10. Have not retained 12 times table nearly so well, though.

mnisto, the thing about times tables is instant recall - once constant repetition has burned them into your brain they are just THERE ready for action the second you need them. Very useful in any situation which requires basic arithmetic.

No-one has to use them if they don't want to but it's a shame not to teach them in the first place when they are so darn handy if you do.

(Btw, I'm sure better teaching of basic maths would mean fewer people being ripped off by retailers and financial services companies. Just as better teaching of spelling and grammar would protect people against falling for internet scams and hoaxes.)

I don't know my times tables by heart, but I'm pretty good with addition and subtraction, so I tend to have a few key ones that I know and then add or subtract down to get to the right answer.

So for example, I can never remember 8 x 7 off the top of my head, but I know 7 x 7 is 49 and 49 plus 7 is 56 or alternatively 8 x 8 is 64 and 64 - 8 is 56.

I can do this as quick in my head as people who just reel off the answer because it is memorised.

We weren´t really taught the times tables in the 80s. I think the teacher went through the times tables a couple of times, and I didn´t get them so that was that. No one clocked on to the fact that I was struggling with maths, and so I only got a D at GCSE first time round. I learned more being a TA sitting in maths lessons than 11 years of schooling. I see a lot of kids at secondary who can´t do the tables, but maybe that´s because I tend to be in the lowest sets.

I was purportedly taught times tables, but I admit, in real life, it's all a bit "4 times eight is the same as 4 times ten less eight". I go through intensely convoluted arithmetic to arrive at the answer which my eight year old has memorised.

It annoyed me no end that the DCs were not taught tables at primary school.

They would be taught techniques to work out 7x6 but never recited the whole table.
I made my boys learn them by rote the old fashioned tedious way that stays with you a lifetime.
I used to go in as a parent helper and it was blindingly obvious to me how much of a handicap it was in Maths to the children who hadn't learned their tables.
Teacher struggling to teach long division (as per the National Curriculum) to children who couldn't add or subtract and didn't know their tables.
They used to let them use little crib sheets. What a waste of time which would have been better spent teaching them basic arithmatic.
Sorry about the rant.

To be controversial, people who are good at Numbers don't need times tables as they can quickly work things out anyway. They generally have methods to make it easier, i.e. I know my square numbers and add or subtract from there, as lenak described above. I think there are a lt of able mathematicians who do this. It is those who have more difficulty who need them burned into their brain as the calculations are more difficult and take longer for them. These are the students who often find them more difficult to learn which is why I have spentyhours with 14 years old getting them to learn the key times tables.
Long division is no longer standard inthe - we use chunking! But that is a whole other thread!

So you can pass maths GCSE without knowing your times tables? Blimey.