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??!!

@BogRollBOGOF

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.

But there's no need for patternsor recall, just calculate?

Which you say hes good at?

With DS1, the time pressure was making him too panicky to concentrate properly on calculating the questions he couldn’t recall quickly.

I don’t know if other children have the same issue with TTRS.

We have only just started using it routinely in the last 6 months for my year 5 child. We did it the traditional way until she was confident enough to use tt rockstars. However it has worked well for my year 4 child. Everyone learns differently so we did what was best for our children.

Its one of those things that works really well for some but not others. Can be very useful but I hate it when schools try to push it on all kids or use it as the one maths homework. My DD found it boring after about y3 but it never did her any harm, but DSD hates it and gets really upset when she can't do it - uses it to prove that she "can't do maths". I think there's a limit to its usefulness- by y3/4 a lot of children will already have quick recall of all the the multiplication and division facts to 12x12 and doing maths at breakneck speed isn't necessarily to be encouraged (although useful for SATs arithmetic). Then for other children TTR can be very stressful, counterproductive and dent their confidence. It should always be optional imo.

Oh and the teacher has set your sons wrong.

I think that’s what makes it more frustrating - that doing TTRS is the maths homework.

He is behind in all areas at school, going through the EHCP process atm etc. Maths is actually something he’s better at than other areas, but he learns better practically and visually. He totally disengages if he has to read or write as he can’t do that (he’s being assessed for dyslexia).

If it was maths homework on a sheet or anything really, I could find another way to do it with him to demonstrate his learning. During lockdown they used white rose maths and he did ok with that, we took our time, did it together.

There just doesn’t seem to be any wiggle room with TTRS, to allow for different strengths or weaknesses. As others have said, it doesn’t actually help them learn their tables, if they don’t already know them it just reinforces that they don’t know and knocks their confidence.

My eldest is 11 and has ASD, also uses TTRS, he does ok with it but finds it boring, he’s not competitive so just does the bare minimum required. The clock frustrates him as well.

My ds' school used TTRS for years and ds hated the time pressure, they still have it now but have also added doodle maths which is so much better, no timer! They now have the choice of either for homework and ds always picks doodle maths.

I have a 9 year old with SEN and she also hates it with a passion. The timer freaks her out and she hates that she doesn't have time to correct if she accidentally hits the wrong number. I was very relieved when covid put paid to the y4 times tables test.

She is good at maths, but she's bad at timed tests.

You need to learn the times tables separately, then use TT for practice at quick recall.

I really hate the lack of parental controls on the times tables set. I was lucky in that I got back in touch with the teacher and she got the appropriate tables for beginners set.

I do not know why teachers and schools throw these bits of software on kids without setting it appropriately. You need to build confidence gradually fgs, surely teachers know this? It can really put kids off. Once I got it set appropriately it really helped my ds build up. He is mildly autistic. I agree with starting on top marks: we liked the mental maths train.

It's been brilliant for DTs but like anything probably isn't suited to all kids.

My dcs school uses TTRS and my dcs handled it well but I can see how it wouldn't suit all children.

I can see how it's uses but like other posters it's the only maths homework my dc got. They never got homework about practicing fractions or telling the time just always 25 minutes of rockstars every night.

My dd is in year 5 now and finds it too easy. She's bored stiff with it.

It's a good test for the kids who know their tables to help them get faster but it doesn't actually help to learn the tables they don't know or are not confident in.

My son has SEN. He's in mainstream secondary and hates this app. It just frustrates him !

I hate TTrockstars with a passion, there’s only one thing worse... Spelling shed as you can see actual names in the league it makes some children feel really crappy that they will never be at the top and makes others completely obsessed with being at the top it’s awful.

@GameSetMatch

I hate TTrockstars with a passion, there’s only one thing worse... Spelling shed as you can see actual names in the league it makes some children feel really crappy that they will never be at the top and makes others completely obsessed with being at the top it’s awful.

Talk to your teacher about that, they should be able to give pseudonyms for the children so that's not the case. I have done that for my class on Spelling Shed. As long as they don't tell each other that eg Eveat Gread is actually Emma, that should deal with that.

My son hated those type of apps when he was younger. Severe learning need and the clock ticking was a nightmare. The staff didnt seem to be able to change the speed. Fucking useless programme - who can develop an educational software and not understand that different children will need to use it differently. I didnt work in education then - I now do and gosh that level of incompetence still surprises me = but why I dont know as it is a daily occurrence.

At 6 I'd stop using anything with a timer, it really isn't helpful.

Smarties maths worked with mine. 2 X 2 is two little piles of two smarties. Count them to show there are four in total. Now make two piles of three smarties each and see that it's 6, and so on. It helps them to visual, builds their confidence and takes away the pressure of the timer.

And obviously eat the smarties at the end as a reward. (Use the little boxes of tiny smarties, not the family pack )

Could you ask your teacher about numbots? It’s what our YR1&2 use before TTRS. It’s a more clam version where they can unlock robots.

+calm

OP, I would just choose a memorization method that worked for my child and me, and explain to the teacher in an email that you will be doing things this way as it works better for you.

I'm happy to do whatever is necessary to help my kid keep up in school, but occasionally if a teacher sets an activity which I think makes no sense, I consider substituting it for something which covers the same content and inserting a polite explanation.

We have also paused TTRS for a while, DC loves timetables.co.uk though, as mentioned by other PPs.

TTRockstars is a great resource to speed up the recall of known timestables until they become automatic, which is the aim when learning times tables.

However, for your son, he doesn't appear to know the timestables yet so TTRockstars will not be useful for him until that happens. For him, the use of double-sided flashcards or the 'round the clock' technique would be infinitely more effective and can be easily done at home to support his acquisition of times tables.

It's important to remember that times tables are a memorisation activity and not a working out activity, much like the number bonds within 10 and 20 from earlier in your son's learning. This has an impact on what activities your might choose to do with him. It's also why TTRockstars has a timer in the first place (it also makes it more like the Y4 multiplication check your son will have to sit).

I've used www.tablefables.net/ with my 6 year old. They learn characters then little stories that go with each times table. There's a theme to each one, e.g. 12 is space aliens and all the 12 x tables stories are space themed. They also do divisions. It worked well for him. He's not particularly quick at recalling them all yet, but there's no "hard" and "easy" ones.

I think you just have to try different things, whether it's an online game, cd or pen and paper and see what sticks.

Despite being told when my children were young that learning by rote wasn't a good idea because children need to understand what they're learning, I still don't agree. It resulted in my four being in their forties and still not knowing their tables. My husband and I used to have to start every school day chanting tables until they were as ingrained in us as a nursery rhyme or song, resulting in even now, in our 70s, both of us being able to answer instantaneously any tables question up to the 12 times table. And it's one thing that we use all the time.
I once bought a book which was aimed at giving children confidence with tables. It was a wipe clean book that you could write on, and it started with "You probably know your 1x, 2x and 10x tables, and you may even know your 5x tables, so go through and cross out all those that you know" All the tables were printed on one page. It then explained that if you know that 4x2=8, you also know that 2x4=8, so you can cross those out too. I think from memory you end up with about 8 sums that are more difficult, and you just have those to learn.

It's horrible and we don't do it. DD gets really stressed about the timer and just can't cope so she writes her times tables down over and over and over and they seem to be sinking in that way.

We also had this problem with DD1, there is no point testing them when they haven’t learnt the times tables yet. We liked Hit the Button.

Once DD had actually learnt the tables then TTR was actually quite good for practicing speed, but still caused a lot of stress if she got answers wrong.