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.

A bit of rote learning v good for foreign languages too.

Teaching children lots of mathods woth no understanding such as long division does not work for a lot of people. There is a new mwthod every lesson as you do different topics and there is no way of remebering. Those with great memories are fine but the rest are left out. Chunking works for a lot of children as it is logical so they are more likely to remember. Times tables are the same. Reciting them is fine and learning them is not to be dismissed but I was maing the point that it is perfectly possible to excel at Maths without knowing them and is in fact very common. I can just imagine the threads though
" my gifted son was made to spend hours reciting his times tables when he knew them all. Why isn't he being given something more challenging to do"
Teachers really can't win!
BTW you don't use tables to do sequences - not the way I teach it and yes I am a great teacher. I happen to think the current secondary curriculum is about right. Can't comment on Primary as I don't know it.

"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" I would argue that it is just as off putting for the child who struggles to learn their tables and has to be tested on them all the time.

So... What to do for teenagers or adults who've not learned or retained them as children and want to know them now, like perhaps these trainee teachers? They're not going to sit and chant now, specially if it didn't work well the first time or if they aren't that kind of learner or are dyslexic? They are going to have to be able to teach them somehow though.

The trainee teachers have the motivation and the responsibility to learn them.

There are so many websites with good games to help you learn them. Or they have a tables list and go through them, memorising them.

Rote learning doesn't have to mean chanting in a loud voice, you know.

i cant do mine. Im rubbish at maths in my head.
i got a gcse A in maths though. Its not that im stupid- far from it, it just we were taught pretty much everything on a calculator.

My maths in my head is so bad that if i was asked to add a seris of say 6 numbers, i would either have to count on my figners or on a peice of paper. ( passed the non calculator part of gcse like that)

I think its not that i cant do it in my head, i just have a total mental block about it. Basically its down to teaching style/

Addictive: how do you teach sequences then? that is very interesting ..my experience of helping my children includes if a sequence is 3, 11, 19, etc, n = 1, 2, 3.. then it's 8n -5, and so for the next terms you would need your eight times table.. surely?

I like the way that these days even the infants are taught that there are different methods of dealing with the same problem. (Although ds has only just started Yr 3 so who knows whether it will prove to be a problem later on.)

I was quite bright at maths at school and endlessly frustrated by having to do everything in one proscribed manner, always the long way round. And then fill several pages with the same boring method when you'd got the point four pages back. Turned me off maths completely. Turns out today ds is actually taught the methods I discovered for myself and wasn't allowed to use. (E.g. estimating and then finishing off the fiddly left over bits.)

Maths did come in handy for economics A-level, to be fair, but I was far better at the descriptive stuff than the calculations.

Btw, am not particularly good at maths today, because I only have to use basic arithmetic in everyday life. And percentages. Lack of practice = losing my grasp. Maybe ds's homework will help me to brush up...

You know, the number of people on here apparently opposed to maths teaching is really depressing.

I wouldn't say opposed to teaching, just not getting why there is such a big deal about times tables by rote if other methods are being taught

i also found that many of the kids had to use the grid method to do long multiplication and they could not cope with division.

i found the grid method confusing and slow.

PopCrackleSnap, the trainee teachers or dyslexics or whoever can look up multisensory or non-verbal or story times tables, and find lots of other ways of learning them - STILL BY HEART - just not necessarily by chanting. And they might still have to work at it. Adults/teens think they can't learn them by memory partly because they don't spend enough time at it - children usually consolidate them over years, learn them for tests, are tested frequently or use them in lessons a lot, don't have that much else they have to memorise at the time, etc. Adults and teens are often busy learning other things, don't do it as regularly, aren't having to use them in the same way all the time, don't test themselves, etc. It doesn't mean they can't learn them if they want/need to, though (like the trainee teachers), but it might take more time than they think. There are some games that are even suitable for older children and adults. If they do some kind of practice regularly for a while, whether chanting or any other method, it's still possible for many people to learn them as an adult, if they have the motivation.

Anybody else's children using the 'cups' method of learning maths. Both mine have done it in primary. DS2 was even doing fractions in Yr R using cups. It seems to work really well although I missed the presentation on how it works!

alemci - I agree entirely about the grid method (if it is the one I am thinking of).

The problem with quite a lot of the methods taught is that whilst they can be good at teaching concepts and ideas they aren't actually very practical for using all the time. The grids method gets very cumbersome and probably completely redundant for larger numbers which means that another method has to be taught to cope with those. I am sure, if my DS is anything to go by, some children find it very hard to switch methods to deal with this.

appletrees - you look for the difference in the numbers, if a sequence is 3, 11, 19, etc, n = 1, 2, 3.. then it's 8n -5, yes it is 8n because the gap between the numnbers is 8, how is that related to the 8 times table? 3,11,19 don't appear in that! BTw the grid mathod is the one that is most successful at GCSE according to the examiners report - I teach it as well as traditional multiplication and then let students choose. Trad. multiplication often gives the wrong answer as children forget the zero as it a trick and not understood.

"You know, the number of people on here apparently opposed to maths teaching is really depressing" I haven't read anyopne opposed to Mths teaching. Having a different view of what Maths teaching should be does not mean they are opposed to it altogether. How aware are of you of research into how maths is most effectively taught? Just because we see things differently does not make us wrong! Maths education is one of the most important things in my life but that does not mean I spend hours with children reciting tables.
I do fizz buzz and multiple dancing which are different ways of doing the ame thing. Variety is the key to all education. We all lern more effectively when we are not bored and switched off.
The most effective way to learn anything is to teach it to others so those trainee teachers will know them before long just like I quickly learnt.

sorry typing with small child on lap leads to many typos.

grid method works for lkarge numbers including 100000x10000 if wanted!

I do not know of any primary school where they do not teach the times tables, every single one teaches them. This is typical ill informed hysteria about something that is a non issue. It is taught, and in main, is taught to a good standard.

I certainly understand sequences. I don't understand why it is not easier to find the next terms in the sequence when youknow your 8 x table. Do you not ask for the next terms,or the 12th term, orhateverhow unusual.

Bamboostalks, sure they taught them at dd's primary school but not so that any but the most motivated children actually knew them. In fact, I think there were 3 children in dd's set (top set) who knew their tables.

My DD1 is in year 4 and is tested on her times tables every week. They are tested on 1 table at a time and don't move on to the next until they get them all right. Part of their homework every week is to practice them.

DD has learnt 2, 5, 10, 3, 4 and is now learning 6. I test her on all these a lot as she forgets them if I don't test for a while. I'm hoping that if I put the work in she will eventually remember them but who knows maybe I will still be having to do it when she is 25 :)

I agree with AppleTrees. Of course times tables should be taught by rote memorisation from an early age. That's how it was done in the past, and most kids picked it up. After much repetition, it eventually becomes second nature and sticks, just like driving a car. You don't need to think to change gears, and you don't need to think to recall your tables. The reason they need to be recalled is speed.

Of course you can get through life without knowing them, just as you can get through life making spelling mistakes. But that's the point of education, to teach you these facts and more.

BeenBeta said
"I found Dance on the National Curriculum the other day. Dance I ask you! Its the X Factorisation of teaching that causes this trend."

This doesn't surprise me. So many educationalists admire the "creativity guru", Sir Ken Robinson, he of "dance is as important as mathematics". Pythagoras must be turning in his grave. Is it any wonder we are being dumbed down?

I'm sure the grid method works for large numbers, any numbers, but it is incrediably cumbersome. Having seen my 10 yr old DS fill a page with the grid method for a simple 3 digit by 2 digit multiplication it isn't something that it very handy for day to day use. Plus it has too many stages for him - he gets lost.

(I have checked by the way that I have the right method).

It seem to me that it isn't so much using lots of different methods of teaching maths to keep it interesting, more a case of using lots of different methods so that the children can find one they are comfortable with. Ultimately most of us only use one method don't we, the one we find easiest.

Why are so many parents spending so much money at Kumon to cover the basics? Shouldn't the educationalists be ashamed? Maybe they don't want the kids to be competent mathematicians?

"I found Dance on the National Curriculum the other day."

I´m in my mid 40´s & we used to do dancing once a week at primary school.