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?

Our primary school still insists on children learning their tables 'off by heart' - it's a regular part of both classwork and homework. They do lots of chanting as a class and clapping games to help them learn.

Once you know them, you never forget!

Scroll down this page for a free download of Timez Attack. A brilliant game the kids love and they have to learn their times tables to be able to get very far.

Learning by rote worked for me too, except for 8x6 which I can never remember

That one's easy Kathy, reverse it and it rhymes

6x8 = 48

Six eights are forty-eight, it rhymes (sort of)
The one I could never remember was 7x8, until some one told me that 56=7x8, so it's 5678

You type faster than me PhantomCam!

learnt by rote too. but the trick to remembering is to keep doing sums in your head.
its quite funny actually, my dad always does the timestables in his village dialect. as he learnt them at the village school.
i do them in aa strange scots singsong

Ah Phantomcam, I wish you had told me that 26 years ago!

psml I do them in a 7 year old girls voice in my head - proves brainwashing does work !!

God, we learned them by rote too (late 70s). When we passed the test (50 questions) we got a badge that said 'I know my tables' that was in our 'house' colour = so we got house points for it. I'm sure Jools has my badge somewhere!

Worked for me too but then again, maybe it 'works' for those who find numbers fairly easy anyway and not so much for those that memorise but don't understand iyswim.

Wrong GS, I never said I understood maths or numbers, I just know my times tables

foulmoonfiend I empathise. dd (also dyslexic) really struggles with them too, whereas ds was seemingly born knowing them - life is very unfair.

I was not taught them by rote in forces school in the 70s, then moved to an ordinary Scottish primary where we did arithMETic every day after first bell etc. I was taken aside and given remedial rote learning to do. I know which was better.
(The latter in case you are wondering.)
I have been a teacher in the past and know a bit about pedagogy...and I know the thinking behind not learning some things by rote. But some things are just better learnt, more quickly accessed (like avoir and etre in French) if you know them by heart.

ha! yes snorcackle! Poor lad. Little brother (5) can recite 2,3,4,5,6 and 10 times tables just from listening to us trying to teach the older one. Still, the older one is better looking

My ds did this method all through primary school and ay 12 still doesn't really know them without endless finger motions and mmming and aahing I learned them by heart at about aged 5 or 6 and still know them and think it is really useful in everyday life

I agree with whoever said when d'you ever need to know that six sixes are thirty six anyway. But as you seem to need them for school, and as they won't make them chant them, I s'pose I will have to. Thanks for those sites, those games might motivate him. That Timez one looks good, I might have a go on it myself!

(Pity they don't spell times properly isn't it)

We learnt by rote, and were thrown random ones which we had to answer before we could go out to break (differentiated of course . ANd the head would yell 9x7 if he saw you on the corridor. We had a sponsored times tables test aged 8 - 50 random ones, to be done in a certain time. I've never forgotten them and I find I do use them quite a bit.

Each class at our school has one Maths lesson a week in the ICT suite & at the end of it one of the year 4 teachers used to borrow my big black computer chair & do Mastermind - Theme tune - "Your name is.." "Your chosen times table is..." & then ask them random facts. They always loved it & would usually be keen to do the really hard ones. Of course there would always be one who tried to be clever & say the 1x table, so he'd say "What's 1x 157,426,928.."

I learnt them by rote and don;t know them now.

However one great teachertaught us a way of working out our 9 x table which I use to this day using your fingers.

Hold all 10 fingers up.

1 x 9 put first finger down, count fingers to the right = 9

2x9 put 2nd finger down, count fingers to the left (1) count fingers to the right (8) = 18

etc

Rote and other ways and I still know them now. My children do both ways too. Won't do any harm to teach them by rote at home. Buy a tables tape they can sing along to.

I can't do them but think I possibly learned the same way as Cod did as I remember my Mum doing her dinger that I wasn't learning them the way she did. I don't know if my not being able to do them is because I am a dunce or because I didn't learn them properly. It's not that I can't do multiplication I just don't come to the same answer the same way as my Mum would.

I'm so glad I learnt mine by rote. I'm useless at arithmetic but knowing my tables has been a huge benefit. Ds never learnt his properly and I wish now I had tried harder with him. But dd learnt hers very young cos whe picked it up really easily when I was trying to teach ds. (He was 8 at the time and she was 5!)

But algebra - eeeeeeuuuugghhhh. What WAS that all about???? When I said that to my mum recently she replied 'Oh I use algebra to solve all sorts of everyday problems!!!!' Like what?????

All of you download this FREE tables game. it's absolutely brilliant. It really teaches them their tables, even my 4 year old is in to them here it is

In fife cod? Where about? I went to a progressive school in fife with gasp open plan desks and generla purpose area with a teaching assitant! Loads of parents refused to send their kids there and sent them to the one pupil one desk in rows school 2 miles up the road.

We still learned by chanting follwed by random out-of-order questions though. Alsoa number square to look at.