AIBU to hate Times Tables Rockstars?

[Rinoachicken]

So my 6 year old has a login for TTRS. He has SEN and really struggles in all areas.

Sat down this weekend to have a go at the 2x and 1x tables which is what they’ve been doing at school.

But no, you can’t choose which times tables to practice - it just has all of them, plus divisions.

So his first question is 98/2. He has no idea of the answer, can see the timer counting down, and gets all upset, doesn’t want to play. He can’t even skip the question.

Way to put kids under pressure and destroy a child’s confidence.

Why is there no practice mode with no timer? Why is there no option to choose which tables to include? Surely that’s a pretty basic function??!!

Another vote for "hit the button" - you can turn off the timer and you can choose which tables.

This really helped my daughter gain confidence in her times tables and she's better than both me and her siblings with times tables now!

My daughter’s school got a bit obsessed with it. She hated it. Threw out the Same questions over and over, she didn’t like the counter, and she couldn’t give a shiny shit about coins, or “winning”. She got the highest mock SATS maths mark of 53 kids in the year. Find a platform that works for you, and don’t be afraid to stick with that instead.

Ds is not a fan of TT rock stars, he much prefers hit the button.

*times fables (from my post earlier)

Teacher here. It's not appropriate for ks1 in my opinion.

Another useful site is snappy maths. They have a variety of sheets that you can print off and some games for each times tables which might be less pressured than TT rockstars.

DD3 moved schools in year 4. She went from being the best at times tables, at a school where they just worked on one table before moving on to the next, at their own pace, to being one of the worst at the new school, which used TTRS. But she soon caught up (no SEN).

What I taught her to do, was to answer 0 for any question she didn't know the answer to, then move on. It helped her confidence and gradually the number of wrong answers diminished.

It really stresses my daughter out. I banned it from my ‘home school’ but can’t ban it now that she’s not at home school anymore.

DS (7) likes it if it's the ones that he is confident with and he is competitive.

DS (9) hates it. He's very strong at maths, but has dyslexia, dyspraxia and ASD. Mentally he's great at calculating but has slow recall and poor memory for patterns like timestables so TTRockstars is very frustrating to him.

TTRockstars is good for practicing what you know and speeding up recall. It does not teach them.

I think TTRS is fine but it is just a gimmick, we used a book and did the old-style questions/answers instead. I found it useful to get them to test me if they weren't keen to be tested.

So glad this thread was posted as my ds and dd (both have SEN and are in specialist provision) hate this site for exactly thr same reasons. My son actually screamed at the timer emailing the teacher was on my to do list but wasnt sure if I was the only parent experiencing difficulty!

I do think the timer is basically evil for children who struggle.

I hate this competitiveness creeping in to everything.

Schools are quite unpleasant in some ways, sadly, with competitive things.

Try mathe rockx app. I love it. Times tables to music. Iv never been able to recall tables yet doing this app with kids even I'm learning them. Also like squeebles app for practice

You could also look at drfrostmaths- there is times table practice which is very flexible. Free to use, if you have a login he gives you silly trophies too.

The teacher should be able to set which tables are available to be practiced.

I was concerned about the timed nature of TTRS when DS1 was told to use it at home last year. DS1 was getting very worked up about that to start with.
When I raised my concerns about the timed tests in TTRS at parents evening, his teacher said that the times tables test at the end of Year 4 has a similar timed aspect to it, and that was why she was encouraging the kids to continue using TTRS.

I do think it only really works once a child has a fairly solid grasp of the tables though. DS1 got into a terrible habit of just pressing 9 whenever he saw a question he couldn’t answer immediately. So he’d be racking up lots of points on the easy questions while not even trying any of the trickier questions. The game doesn’t seem to penalise wrong answers, I guess so children aren’t discouraged if they make a mistake, but it let DS1 get away with not trying to work out the ones he didn’t know immediately.

We moved onto flash cards in the end, just because that was one of the only ways I could get him to sit and think through the answer on the trickier times tables questions.

@rc22

As a teacher, I would recommend timestables.co.uk. It's quite basic but a nice,gentle way to learn tables.

Also loving this website. Leads them gently by the hand through each times table, with a game focusing on it at the end.

You need to speak to your child's teacher - there absolutely IS a way to set specific tables, with no division questions, for individual children & if they play in the 'garage' part of the system, they will only get asked these questions. (I'm a Primary School Teacher & use TTRS all the time.)

Thanks again all for all the great suggestions. We were definitely in the ‘garage’ section but it had al 1-12 includes so it sounds like maybe it’s not been set up correctly from schools end. Hopefully that can be rectified.

I completely agree! My DC is 7 and in year 3, was given a log in last year and had the exact same issue with the timer and difficult questions. The teacher does need to set the times tables for it not to show them all, we had this issue last year and this. Last year I didn't make DC do them for the same reason you have said. This year I thought I'd give it another go, the teacher has now set it for just 2's and 5's but it mixes them both together and includes divisions. My dd doesn't even know what a division question is and she was sobbing at not even being able to attempt it before the timer was going off. The timer is so fast that even when I was shouting out the answers just to get some rote learning going she was struggling to click on the correct answer. I will not put her through it anymore. I have had her do some 2's times tables on Push the Button, a free website instead. I have been meaning to write a note to the teacher to express my concern that TTrockstars is too difficult.

Dd10 is very clever and good at times tables, but she hates TT rockstar because of the timer. She's refused to do it for years now and to be honest I've stopped pushing it because she's doing well without it.

Ours were set specific tables and there’s gigs, rehearsals etc (something like that). I’m the beginning it was very hard for my Sen kid. She got really good but only after a really rigorous program we devised. I hope it improves.

What helped my DD was having her write out the tables she needed to know, and she used it as a crib sheet. She’s a visual learner. Eventually she didn’t need the sheet.

As a parent and a teacher, I find it frustrating that the teacher sets the tables to practice and there is no overwrite for parents or child. In my experience, my kids teachers either forgot to select appropriate tables or simply aren't on top of what is appropriate for my kids. It means I have to stop my own children from using this app, even though I think the core approach it uses is fine.

So relieved to read this. My dd hated any competive stuff despite being really good at maths but I thought it was her autism. My ds is good at maths but panics at anything with a timer. TTRS has been a total turn off for both of them.

I learned my times tables by rote 50 odd years ago (still remember them) but I had to think twice over that question, why do schools put children under such pressure, its so pointless.