to think this is a crappy way to teach?

[swishyinhersatinandtat]

Just had DS9 come down from bed in floods of tears.

Turns out at school - he's in year 4 - there's a 'times tables challenge' - kids are tested on rapid recall of tables over a 3 minutes. According to how many get right they move up levels - bronze, silver, gold etc. This is on a board at the front of the class for all to see. He and two other kids are at the bottom.

It surprises me a bit as - please don't think I'm boasting - he's always been academically very strong at maths - lots of extension work in lower years, shining reports blah blah. That's not what concerns me though. What I don't like is displaying names like this - surely some kids are going to struggle more than others? Why display their names? Aptitude at certain things is so different to moving names up and down a behaviour chart. Also this seems to go against the whole school ethos of 'don't learn things in parrot fashion' etc.

I get that this isn't a major issue, but DS was very upset. DH thinks I'm being ridiculous and this is a normal way to teach. Opinions?

You can both understand how times tables work, and rote learn them. The two things aren't mutually exclusive.

derm - I don't think learning number bonds is bad. But learning tables by rote, to recite at speed, is different, isn't it?

You can both understand how times tables work, and rote learn them. The two things aren't mutually exclusive.

Yep, this is exactly what my DS has learnt and what I try to teach as a lower KS2 teacher.

Sorry, cross posted.

Indeed you can. There are many things you can do, and there will always be a pool of students who cope cheerfully with a poor teaching strategy and flourish. But I don't think that means it's ok to employ poor strategies.

Is there any good reason why the exercise in the OP could not be substituted for a game playing with number bonds? Must it be times tables by rote?

Someone has yet to prove there is an enormous advantage to learning these bonds in tabular form.

Totally irrelevant as an argument against teaching kids how to spell.
On this topic, I must admit I think that teaching how to spell is also a bit pointless. Kids either read and develop the correct visual memory for the correct spelling, or they don't. I learned English in my twenties as a third language, and have never been formally taught how to spell - still somehow able to arrange vaguely recognisable (I hope!) words into sentences.
I agree with learning by rote when it comes to learning poetry by heart. Then this "instant recall" actually helps to let the mind drift away and the magic of rhythm and rhyme starts working (at least for me). I was surprised that there is very little of it in British schools (unless it is a drama club or something).

No it's exactly the same. By year 4 you'd home the child has some idea of how the times tables work. Eg 6x7 is 6 lots of 7, or 7 lots of 6, and has seen and used visual aids to help. However there comes a point where you just need to know the facts.

My year 11s are factorising quadratics this week. They can do it, but their lack of times table knowledge slows them down. They spend so much time counting through their times tables whereas if they just "knew" (ie instantly recalled" that 7 x 9 = 63, the process would be far easier for them. They would also have more chance of remembering how to factorise because they could dedicate more brain power to it. (I know that's a simple way of putting it re brain power etc, it's late on a Saturday!)

“Because for some children (some, not all), it's one of the ways of dissociating them from what maths is really about. They start to see it as a system of rules and memory exercises, and not a structure with meaning, which can be adapted. Learning times tables does not have to be like that, of course, but learning by rote, and learning by rote at speed, does tend to cut out the elements of understanding and thinking and reflecting. And that in turn produces children who do not readily think beyond the rules later on.”

When you say “some”, out of a class of 25, how many children would you say have been disadvantaged and turned off maths by learning the times tables?

dermy year 11s who don’t know their times tables?

No it's exactly the same. By year 4 you'd home the child has some idea of how the times tables work.

No, it isn't exactly the same at all. If someone learns times tables by rote, and nothing else, they will have to go through them by rote. And that is what many adults do, let alone children. Chanting to yourself '4 times 4 is six-teen' is not very productive.

Yes, you might 'hope' a child would silently internalise untaught rules. And, as I have said, many do. There will always be a group of able children who don't need much teaching.

It's the same with phonics. In the years of 'look-and-say' (which is the equivalent of times tables), many children learned to read without problems. They saw c-a-t and read 'cat', having internalised the rules about what the sounds said with no difficulty. Later on, when they had to read words they'd never met before, they were fine.

But other children, who for whatever reason did need some teaching, did not learn so well. And phonics helps them, just as proper teaching of number bonds would help.

I just cannot see how 'but some kids learn without us bothering much, so it's ok' is an argument for anything.

nolonger - I'd guess probably about 20? I don't really know. I would imagine if that class represents the population in microcosm, maybe only 4-5 will really struggle, and I agree that isn't hugely much. But of the rest, many of them will only superficially cope with maths, and by the time they're adults, they'll have lost a lot of the rote-learned skills they once had, and will be lacking in confidence and basic abilities. I would doubt that more than 5 or so students would be really comfortable with arithmetic/basic maths, were you to look at them as adults.

My dd was “shit at maths”. Learning her tables a) gave her confidence and b) gave her a tool that meant that she could and did succeed at maths in a way that she never thought she could

Great for her, Bertrand. But suppose she hadn't been able to learn those tables? Would you have been happy for that to be demonstrated by a list showing her name at the bottom? How much do you think that would have helped her confidence with maths?

Well I was assuming they wouldn’t remove the chart and abandon times tables completely. But removing the chart doesn’t remove the knowledge that the OP’s DS was at the bottom, it simply removes the opportunity to move from the bottom. He may improve his timetable knowledge but he won’t see the fruits of that in relation to the thing that upset him.

I don't really understand how people suggest the rest of the class knows that one particular child was at the bottom in the absence of a list being posted. But how much use is the opportunity to move from the bottom to a child with learning difficulties who can't take advantage of that opportunity?

year 11s who don’t know their times tables?

Lots of them. None of them in my top set heading to be maths professors though.

Not all maths profs were in top set at school, mind.

If you learn them by rote then when you see the number 56 you straight away think 7x8. This helps A LOT later on when simplifying fractions, expanding brackets, calculating percentages etc.

I just cannot see how 'but some kids learn without us bothering much, so it's ok' is an argument for anything
This is literally the opposite to what I'm saying. Children don't learn times tables through understanding them. They have to understand them to apply them, however the cold hard 9 x 8=72 doesn't need much understanding.
What does "proper teaching" of times tables look like? (times tables and number bonds are different things).

A lot of effort goes into pupils learning times tables from ks1 upwards.

sarah I don’t think we should be basing educational policies on an anomaly.

Instead of telling him "never mind, you're good at other things" why not tell him "if you want to get better at this you need to practice" ? Even if you are totally terrible at something you can improve.

Not true. My very dyslexic nephew is totally terrible at writing and spelling despite always having worked very hard and having ultimately achieved both and BA and an MA. But his writing and spelling have never improved. Thank goodness for scribes and modern technology.

I just cannot see how 'but some kids learn without us bothering much, so it's ok' is an argument for anything

Yet you use this argument in relation to your brother, who learned OK without anyone "bothering" to teach him times tables.

If you learn them by rote then when you see the number 56 you straight away think 7x8

Can you explain why you think that is generally true?

And no, many people tried to teach him his times tables. I said he did not learn them by rote, which is quite different.

“But of the rest, many of them will only superficially cope with maths, and by the time they're adults, they'll have lost a lot of the rote-learned skills they once had, and will be lacking in confidence and basic abilities. I would doubt that more than 5 or so students would be really comfortable with arithmetic/basic maths, were you to look at them as adults.”

My children aren’t being taught rules-based maths though and I’m impressed by how well they’re being taught.

How do children who don’t know times tables cope with mult-step complicated maths problems? My kids’ junior schools doesn’t allow calculators. Do they just accept that a 4-5 step question will be more like 7-8 steps?

noble - no, I don't think we should base things on anomalies either, but I do think if something does no harm to most children, and helps some, then it is better than something that does a bit of harm to most children and actively harms some. IMO times tables are like that. It is a vanishingly small number of children who are incapable of learning number bonds but can learn times tables.

How do children who don’t know times tables cope with mult-step complicated maths problems? My kids’ junior schools doesn’t allow calculators. Do they just accept that a 4-5 step question will be more like 7-8 steps?

Well, it might often be faster, right? If you've truly rote learned tables, you might not be very quick, because it is not an efficient way of getting to the answer.

(I suspect most people who claim to have rote learned times tables have actually memorised number bonds in isolation, FWIW).

What sort of complicated problem do you have in mind?

Sarah because that's what happens.... Students who know their timetables see 56 and recall 7 x 8. You don't have to spend time going through every times table to get there. What bit of understanding helps you to remember this fact?

do think if something does no harm to most children, and helps some, then it is better than something that does a bit of harm to most children and actively harms some

WTF are you basing that assertion on? Learning tables does a bit of harm?!

What exactly is your experience of maths education? Knowledge of working memory? Cognitive load theory?

What do you mean by number bonds?