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.

Presumably as others have said th ey can be learnt by rote (although I never learnt them this way, neither has ds so far). A six year old could do this. At the moment it is just an enjoyable way to spend the journey. Agree completely with cloudsaway.

MMt I guess its because if you know it you will never get it wrong. If you have to count on then the margin for error is greater, because a complex calculation will have more stage IYSWIM

they can easily be forgotten by rote too

DS1's (Yr 6) school don't as far as I am aware, do it by chanting. They continually do timed tests of random questions. Because he doesn't get it yet (partly due to dyspraxia - his mind just isn't that ordered) I have just started the chanting thing. He has only the lowest level of times table certificate they handout. Some of his classmates got them all by the time they were in Yr 4, but again the dyspraxia means that he can't write at the speed his brain works so double whammy as far as the tests are concerned. He will get there but I expect DS2 in Yr2 will overtake him some time soon. He's a natural at it.

BeenBeta - I am surprised all those business people are so frightened of maths. I wonder what degrees they did? I have an economics degree which has a qualitative paper so you needed maths for that. I also have a psychology degree and because of the stats you need to be comfortable with maths for that too. Perhaps they were all humanities graduates? There aren't many social sciences were don't need some confidence with numbers because of stats and obviously any science grad would need it too.

In DH's defence he gets the harder stuff, just uses a calculator for the stuff I can do in my head.

Chunking is a great method - I use that for multiply and dividing quite big numbers in my head if I don't have paper and a pen. And for Countdown back in the days I used to watch.

Yes any knowledge you aqquire and never use again will be lost. But as others have said once you have the times tables ,you use them everyday becuase it is so much quicker and easier to do so, than tcalculate another way. I am now trying to think of a situation where you would not do some form of mental arithmetic in a given day. To be fair we are all fairly numerate in my family would never think of using a caculator to for example work out the best value apples (ds will do this with me now btw).

I don't use a calculator either. - and actually to work out the best value apples these days you just need to look closely at the price tickets - even on the 3 or 2 offers it tells you how much/many/p per gram whatever the itme is - you just compare it with the next one

I do mental arithmetic regularly - I just very very rarely use multiplication.

zapostraphe would you say that not giving children the option of learning by rote was disadvantaging (if that is a word ) some children?

Not in the farm shop (smile) Sounds to me MMT that you didn't need to learn tables because you are naturally quite good at maths. As cloudsaway said the worry is those children who can't find other ways round or whose addition is also poor ( as i said counting on , ln their fingers for example) I worked with a girl like this in a bakery one summer.

I was drilled on them as a kid but have forgotten most of it.

I do things by 10. Have never encountered a problem, knowing your timetables by heart is not an essential life skill for most people.

HAHAHA at me being good at maths - and good point about the farm shop. But don't farm shops usually price per kilo anyhow?? So the Bramley apples at £1kg are cheaper than the Granny Smiths at £1.20kg

nope struggled big time with my Standard Grade (in Scotland) maths. Eventually scraped by with a 2 - but my god I was glad to quit it as most of it was double dutch to me.

When I moved recently I found some of my old Standard Grade revision/practice books - opened them up and went at them.

However, I've always found mental arithmatic in every day situations pretty straightforward (so long as I don't have to use my times-tables ). Problem solving "easy" - "maths" on paper, forget it.

Example of farm shop 5 for a£1 or 8 for £1.50 . Very interesting that different people are good or bad at different parts of maths. I wonder if parallels can be drawn with literacy, most children areble tcope with less didatic methods, however there is a minority who need this grounding and are unlikely to suceed without it.

MaMoTTaT, that's what I was meaning - there isn't any difference if someone has to chant through the whole table, and someone who has to calculate/add. People seem to think that chanting automatically produces the ability to know individual facts instantly and randomly, and it doesn't necessarily. What I think is wanted is random recall. That can be done by verbal memory, or visual, or any other sort, and tested by asking the tables in random order. Sometimes chanting leads to instant memory (especially if combined with the random tests), sometimes not. That's why I don't think it's anything special as a method. I was advocating install recall, not chanting.

aye - but that's division and not multipication

and you may have noticed I can't spell either

I'd work it out with no calculator as 5X20=£1 20x8=160 therefore the second apples are cheaper, to work out how much I would need to do 10 (the difference) divided by 8 which is not so easy , for me. I think there are many ways to skin a cat. But maybe some children need the instant recall cloudsaway talks about in order to do realatively simple calculations. Also I guess as this thread was about trainee teachers, you would certainly want the person teaching your Dc maths to have that instant recall. Would be horrified if they didnt TBH

Seems to be fairly normal not to know them then. I have them memorised as does ds1 (8yrs) and the maths he does now - particularly division - would be a lot harder if he didn't know them. At my placement school as well children were told to learn them but not as part of the
sequence. I would agree though that it is important to be able to apply the knowldege as well and have an unerstanding of what they mean.

BeenBeta we had a session on teaching dance. Apparently it is very good for developing lots of skills - co-ordination, teamwork, working memory, building confidence independence and creativity.

Clouds I agree with you except --

"there isn't any difference if someone has to chant through the whole table, and someone who has to calculate/add. People seem to think that chanting automatically produces the ability to know individual facts instantly and randomly, and it doesn't necessarily"

only 2 4 6 8 has this disadvantage

7 8s are 56 does not

and most teachers old fashioned enough to do chanting will do random flash tests

I taught my children by chanting and using homemade flash cards (answers to be given in amusing voices as it was so dull) which did the job

otherwise, basically, I agree enormously with your statement that not knowing the basics puts children off

I cannot see why teachers would put off learning the 2 5 10 x tables until y3, I don't understand that at all.

who said they put off the 2 5 10 until yr 3?

I said that they do they in YR2

And even if they did "put it off" until YR3 I wouldn't give a damn.

Not sure what the rush is to teach then when they're still at infants. Half of their peers in Europe (and other places around the world) haven't even started school at YR2 age - yet they cope just fine with waiting until they're a little older - so perhaps they may actually understand what they're chanting about,

I do fine that 2 4 6 8 etc means that you get pretty good at addition -and I tend to find addition comes up MUCH more frequently in my day to day live than multiplication

And as for not knowing the basic putting children off - some children are simply put off by maths full stop regardless of knowing the basics or not

Because they absorb it so much more easily.
Chanting can be very boring, of course -- it's repetitive so for a eight/nine year old it's tedious. Isn't that what part of the complaint is all about? But less so for younger children.

Four five sixers are more receptive to all the rote learning methods, the singing, the rhymes, the games, it's all part of the way they learn anyway. By Y4 + they are moving beyond that, to exploration, investigation etc etc based on what they've learnt.

Sorry disagree totally with your point about understanding, which is what's led to people not knowing their times tables half the time. Four five six ideal for chanting singing etc. Six seven plus -- ideal for expanding their understanding.

So you can do the very simple "understanding" teaching at a young age, the how many lots of buttons etc, and expand it further as they get older. But if you never understand, at least you know them -- if you struggle with maths, at least you know the arithmetic.

And who said understanding has to come first? I didn't understand before I learned them.

"And as for not knowing the basic putting children off - some children are simply put off by maths full stop regardless of knowing the basics or not" so that means rote learning is A Bad Thing -- because some children can't do maths?

This point's been covered. Children who function well with soldi times tables learning are being disadvantaged by an accommodation being made for the few who don't respond.

So age 6 to 7 they start learning their 2 x table ..I think that's a lot of good learning time wasted.

I actually can't believe I'm talking to somebody who is criticising the value of learning something. Many many good reasons have been given for knowing times tables, their uses, their confidence building ability, and so on, and you just say yeah but I can use my mobile.

It's like my teenager -- yeah but what's the point of history? It seems quite astonishing in a grown person and a parent.

you've TOTALLY missed my point about the age.

How come other countries where - children don't START school until they're 7 manage to achieve just as good a results (and better) than we do.

I don't think our children "gain" anything from being in school from 4/5yrs old.

and what do you mean I just go yeah I can use my mobile.

I can't actually remember the last time my mobile came out to use it.

If you'd read my posts you'd see I said that I use addition in my head.

Every time I do a shop I mentally add up (roughly of course - I'm not doing the 31ps and 49s - I round then up or down) how much I'm spending. With 3 children in tow, a pushchair and a trolley I don't really have hands free to get the mobile out.

Actually every time I spend money I'm conciously doing addition and subtraction to work out how little is going to be left

Children can learn their times tables solidly without learning by rote.

Many who learn by rote will have forgotten them in 10yrs time (if not before).

You don't NEED to know your times tables to get through life competently.

I don't think there's any merit in drumming them into a child of 4/5/6 - especially as at that age many children are still trying to work out how to count up to 100 and other basic numerical skills.

I just don't personally feeling that boring many children senseless, with something that many will still be doing chanting for internally even into adulthood, is going to improve how many trainee teachers have retained it by that stage.

And I note that not only do you want to bore them senseless, you want to bore them senseless with something that they won't even understand!

I think going back to rote will be a fast track route to putting even more children off studying maths later in life. And for the many children that will struggle to retain it even chanting them daily it's going to make school pure hell - hey yes lets go back to the 1950's..........because all the adults I know of that age know their times tables by rote.........not

"How come other countries where - children don't START school until they're 7 manage to achieve just as good a results (and better) than we do." I don't know which countries you're thinking of. Firstly, a lot of Scandi parents are not that happy with their children's education: secondly, they're in formal nurseries learning formally before school anyway.

"I don't think our children "gain" anything from being in school from 4/5yrs old." How depressing.

"and what do you mean I just go yeah I can use my mobile. I can't actually remember the last time my mobile came out to use it.".. sorry I might be getting you mixed up with someone else who said they whipped their mobile out.

"Children can learn their times tables solidly without learning by rote." Many can't, chanting is more straightforward and easier with large groups.

"Many who learn by rote will have forgotten them in 10yrs time (if not before)." Is that something you made up?

"You don't NEED to know your times tables to get through life competently." Excatly you are arguing against teaching something effectively and efficiently, ignoring its extreme usefulness and its importance in further maths understanding bassically because not everyone can do it and because you can muddle through without. That's a really poor argument.

You haven't read what many posters have said about it being very very difficult to progress without times tables, thus causing children to have a chronic loss of confidence and be put off maths forever. You just don't want to believe it.

You're just basing your whole point on, well it was hard for me and it's a bit boring so let's not bother .

I hated German, it was utterly useless for me and extremely boring, and I've managed without it all my life.

I don't therefore believe people ought to stop learning German, because people can manage perfectly well without German, or to stop learning the der die das whatever, because it's a boring way to learn it, and not everybody understands German, and people can start learning German when they're fifteen and still learn German, so why start learning when they're thirteen, and it's all so boring so nobody should do it really. Why would I entertain such thoughts? I'm very happy to understand German is useful, worth absorbing even if it isn't utterly gripping every single second, and certainly important enough to pay the price of some rote learning. Even if, shock horror, it's not my bag.

"Clouds I agree with you except --

"there isn't any difference if someone has to chant through the whole table, and someone who has to calculate/add. People seem to think that chanting automatically produces the ability to know individual facts instantly and randomly, and it doesn't necessarily"

only 2 4 6 8 has this disadvantage

7 8s are 56 does not"

Yes, if they have practised so that they can actually say "7 8s are 56", that's perfect. But some who chant/sing etc have learned them almost as a song, where they can just go to any line of the song at will, but have to go through the whole thing to get there, which is as long (or longer) as calculating from a nearby known table.

But if they have practised with random tests, or if they have chanted in such a way that they CAN just get to any fact, then that's what's wanted. It's the instant access, however you get there. Chanting (if done right) can lead to that (as can other memory methods).

Nothing wrong with the quick calculations either, for the people who are good at maths, understand what they're doing, get really quick at it, have it as a fall back, haven't been able to learn the tables despite practice, etc. But it doesn't mean that most children won't benefit from at least trying to learn them from memory, in addition to some of the other strategies. The quick calculation methods are also very good for ensuring that children understand what they are doing and how multiplication works. If a child wants to quickly know 13x3, and can start at 10x3 and then continue 33, 36, 39, that shows a good understanding of how it works. So they are very useful methods to know AS WELL. It doesn't have to be either/or (for most children; obviously there are some who will learn by rote and never understand, and some who will understand perfectly, but are unable to memorise).

MaMoTTat,
oh - is THAT what chunking is - yes I do lots of chunking

people have different names for it; some use chunking more to refer to division, but it's all the same idea, splitting it into parts and then multiplying/dividing the two parts individually. For division, like 84/7, they could think "what is 10x7" (because that's an easy one), 70, so how much of the 84 is left? 14. So how many more 7s can you get out of that? 2. Total of 10+2 7s, so 12. If it's a bigger numberlike 182, they might think (amongst other possible ways of doing it), "what is 10x7? 70. Too small. Use 7x2 = 14 to help. So 20x7 is 140. How much is left of the 182? (which would be done by counting on, i.e., 140 to 180 is 40, then 2 more to get to 182). So 42 are left, how many more 7s is that? 6. Total is 20 and 6, so 26. That's one of a number of ways that might be used/taught. It's still really useful to know the times tables automatically, though.

Some things are well suited to learning by rote and tables are one of them. Rote learning is not Bad. It has its place.

And it's not as if all teachers are doing is some sort of senseless, constant rote learning. There is a wide variety of games to practise tables and children find them very enjoyable.

Rote learning is just one way and it can be a very effective way.