In my day, you learnt your times tables by rote, and you knew them forever afterwards.

[ScareyCaligulaCorday]

[Old fart emoticon]

But now, my DS's teacher tells me that as she asks random tables, there's no point learning by rote.

But I thought that was the point of learning by rote - so that if somone asks you what seven times six is, you can instantly remember that it's 42 because of chanting it like a song - you don't have to work it out.

DS has been trying to learn his 2 times tables for 4 weeks and still doesn't know them. How can I teach him?

Message withdrawn

I learned by rote.......and still can't do them now......

learnt them by rote, in a nice sing song at the age of 7 and still remember them now. 24 years later....

go on ask me one...!

The down side of all that old rote learning (at my primary school anyway) was that you were terrorised for getting them wrong.

And what purpose does knowing them serve anyway? I can recite all mine, but there is no way I could ever use them as a short cut to doing mental arithmetic, or whatever.

My DSs (well, DS1 and DS2) already seem to have a grasp of how numbers work that I never ever had

I learnt by rote too, and it worked...

I have no idea. What year is your boy in? Hopefully, mine won't be doing it for a while!!

How else does he learn them if he doesn't learn them by rote?

dd counts in 2s, 5s, and 10s (like cod) but I don't think they've had to do anything more complicated - would think counting in those is quite helpful but any other times table (e.g. 7 or 8) you would have to learn off by heart wouldn't you?

probably depends if you have a good memory or have cause to use them often. I have neither. My times table knowledge is therefore sketchy though I knew them once all the way up to 12x12

Get him to chant the 2 times table, then ask random out-of-order questions. If he can't answer the out-of-order questions, then get him to do some more chanting. Yes, it's tedious and may take some time.

You could try something a bit more gimmicky like tapes of tables set to music (I think there may even be a rap version) or buy one of those tables games with sound effects, but I don't think the gimmicks really work any better than The Traditional Method.

I was just telling my dd about this today (learning table by rote I mean!) She has been doing them at school for a couple of years but still doesn't seem to remember them...

My father taught me by rote and fear and it worked.
Have been trying to teach my two for years now using old system and new ,nothing sticks.
Have told them its a tool ,a device to make sums work,set it to music,even showed them that trick with your fingers and the 9x table and that 6x7=meaning of life!
Nothing works.I think repetition and fear are the only way to crack this.

What I did with DS1 last year (y3) was a table a week with a small reward if he knew it both in order and could answer random questions at the end of the week. I wrote out the table up to x12 and then he learned it by rote at breakfast.I asked him 5 "What is 6 x 3?" type questions and 5 "How many 6s in 36?" type questions each day.

It worked, whereas the songs and charts etc, never had.

Oh this is my pet subject at the moment. Being just as old farty than you Caligula, I too learnt them by rote and am still shit hot at them.

That rote style of learning was dropped by the educational powers that be along the lines of it being "cruel" or some other such twaddle.

I think its the whole building block of maths, nit just for understanding multiplication but I don't get how you can do division or addition or subtraction without knowing the x tables off by heart. It's also about being able to do maths at a certain pace.

I basically taught them to my dd a couple of years ago and she is really using them big time now in her Year 5 schoolwork.

My dh was at a govt educational meeting yesterday and when he said "I wish schools would bring back learning times tables by rote and stop being so pc" applause broke out.

Message withdrawn

DD1 is learning them now. She is learning them by rote (with the approval of 'Miss') although her teacher also says that she will eventually start asking random questions (e.g. what's 2x7?) too. They only have to know 2x, 5x and 10x for KS1, though.

Absolutely, PhantomCAM. So much of maths seemed to fall into place for DS1 once he knew them.

As Caligula said, the whold point of learning them by rote is so that you can just pluck the random fact out when you need it. All this skip counting is fine, but no use when you need to know what 7 7s are.

49

I learned by rote and only remember the difficult ones because I made sure to learn these as they were the ones that we were tested on, so other than 2's and 3's I don't know more than 3 or 4 without thinking for a while

Learning by rote worked for me

Caligula, teach them just by singing them together, on car journeys, at bath-time, in the bus stop wherever. If you can't bring yourself to sing, then there are workbooks with CDs with them on.

After a few weeks get him to sing one at random "4 times table today please", at unexpected times.

Then you can progress to asking a random multiplication out of the blue. Make it a fun competition, reward with sweeties, that sort of thing

I think only the rote method is the only one that works , but I have taken the easy route and stuck a times tables song tape (ELC) in the cassett player in the car on the school run in the morning . Ha Ha he cant escape . LOL

I learnt mine by rote. I had a bit of a nightmare with a very stressed DD (who has dyspraxia and finds this type of thing hard) and the two times table 2 weeks ago.

We did:

1. ELC tables tape at night before bed.
2. Broke it down into learning just 2 or 3 of them in a day but recapped the ones we did the day before on the next day. Didn't move on until she had remembered the ones she had been trying to learn.
3. Lived, drank, breathed the bloody things all day for about a week, spouted them everywhere - the walk to school, up the stairs, in the car, in the bath.
4. Did the whole 2,4, 6, 8, 10, thing backwards and forwards with claps inbetween.
5. Did 2,4,6,8, who do we appreciate, 10, 12,14,16, we support the Pickle Team, 18,20,22,24, don't forget to shut the door. Sorry it's complete rubbish but it seemed to help her ! 6)Popsycal kindly put a link up to this interactive site , which I hope she doesn't mind me putting up.

Sorry, one final one. Type them out in a word processing package in a long list, then make each one a diffent a different colour. Pin up randomly round the house.

it's feckin hard trying to teach my dyslexic ds (8.5) the tables. he cannot learn by rote Everyday we practice, every day he gets bored and cross but eventually gets word perfect. Every day, he forgets everything and we're back to square 1.

thanks for that table trees link btw, that'll help!