MATH - Is about spotting patterns. Not learning Times Tables. Opine.

[HarrowToCroydon]

MATH - Maths is not about learning times tables, it’s about spotting patterns in everything we experience and using them to plan and invent.

From a 7 year old Guardian article,
Reckon you were born without a brain for maths? Highly unlikely | Students | The Guardian

Would you recount your experiences where you or your loved ones were traumatised by Math.

I'm always a little bit traumatised by hearing it called math. Otherwise, not so much.

Maths

I love maths.

Knowing my times tables has helped me much more in every day life than spotting patterns.

Is this for an article?

Learning times tables is pattern spotting, such lazy journalists!

I love maths. Have a degree in it.
The only trauma I have from it is the fact my DD does not like it.

And as PP said, times tables are about pattern spotting!

What are your experiences OP?

Oh, and DD doesn't like it because she has memory/processing issues.

That was my first thought too.

A firm knowledge of timetables is the basis for a lot of mathematics too. A good recall is very helpful.

Children don't actually learn their times tables any more.

Oh yes they do. Primary Teacher (Scotland) but not purely rote we look at and explore patterns too.

Are you sure?

DD did. Her primary school drummed it into them that knowing your times tables was the basis of all maths. They learned them by rote in exactly the same way I did in the 1960s.

Yes they do - DD is year 3 and we've just been given access to a online times table game they're told to do for homework

My DS age 11 absolutely did learn all his times tables at Primary school. They use TT Rockstars online in a lot of schools for this and do written and verbal exercises/tests.

Rote learning times tables allows for significantly faster pattern spotting. Dull but once it's in there it's stuck.

Maths is a brilliant subject which can create amazing engagement with the world around us.

They do.

My son really struggled with Maths when he was younger but since getting access to Times Tables rockstars in year 3 he has developed a really firm knowledge of his time tables which has helped him across the board.

Mathsssssssss

They very much do. Tested on them by a government test in June of year 4 (England).

And, in my experience based on over 30 years as a primary teacher, maths (with and S) needs a firm foundation of number knowledge, including times tables (also number bonds, doubles, place value) all of which include pattern spotting.

Number bonds and times tables are the two most important things children can learn in Maths - frees up so much processing time if they don't need to think about these.

What are times tables if not patterns??

I didn't learn my timetables at school (education was going through one of those phases) - and it's been a pain my whole life (I do know them, but I have to spend that touch longer thinking than when they've been trained in at an early age).

I was drilling my kids on them on car journeys as soon as they knew what multiplication was 😀

Not only do they learn tables, but they also learn number pairs, with a lot of emphasis on it, so the number pairs to 10 for example come straight into their heads.

It's like my eldest has just started factorising quadratic equations - being totally familiar with number pairs, knowing his times tables etc. means that he can spot the patterns and solve them so much more quickly than if he didn't, so he's got the hang of them with very little effort.

So much of maths is just having the confidence to give it a go, and seeking out alternative explanations if you're not getting it the first way it's being explained. We don't all think alike, and sometimes you have to come at an idea from another angle to understand it.

Eh? They have a times tables check in year 4 and are expected to be able to recall the answer within a few seconds.

The first sign thst ds was a gifted Mathematician wsd his ability to recognise patterns....in times tables! Age 3 he worked out that you could count in 2's 3's 4's etc and was very excited by this.
He is now a Maths student at Oxbridge and had very strong views that Maths is poorly taught at primary ( the curriculum being the problem rather than individual teachers) and more children would enjoy it and be better at it if the primary curriculum was changed.

No.