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Times Tables App?

28 replies

Cuppatea14 · 13/10/2025 13:19

My DD (10) doesn’t know her times tables properly, and it’s really holding her back in maths.

We’re going to start all the way back at 3 x tables and work our way up at home, does anyone know of any good online resources, or shall I just bash them into her head 1980’s style?

OP posts:
Dolphinnoises · 13/10/2025 13:20

DK do a free 10 minutes a day app with a racing car

Dolphinnoises · 13/10/2025 13:21

But if you can bear it, 1980s style is more effective

Fizzysticks · 13/10/2025 13:24

My daughter loves TT rockstars

YetiRosetti · 13/10/2025 13:25

Fizzysticks · 13/10/2025 13:24

My daughter loves TT rockstars

Mine too! I really recommend it

DominosForDinner · 13/10/2025 13:27

Topmarks.co.uk has plenty of multiplication and division fact exercises/games. You can do one a day for free as I recall.

I admit with dd, who hated TT rockstars, I taught her in the kitchen during breakfast: same with spellings - 5 mins of each every morning, sometimes I’d write out a test and she’d have to fill it in, sometimes I would quickfire questions. And on the way walking to school we did quickfire for a few mins at a time. Very effective

Start with a multiplication table in order then division facts in order; then mix up that table.

It’s speed of recall that you really need and division is as important as multiplying!

selondon28 · 13/10/2025 13:37

Many schools use Times Table Rockstars, they subscribe as a school and give everyone a login. But you can also subscribe yourself and 10 mins a day will make the difference.

Bunnycat101 · 13/10/2025 21:54

I’d be a bit wary of apps at this point as I’d be amazed if she hasn’t used TTRS at school and if it hasn’t worked yet, it’s possibly not going to.

I’m convinced some kids just don’t always respond to apps and need a different form of learning for it to sink in. My eldest just did spellings via app and built no muscle memory or ability to spell despite hitting high marks on the app. She needs to write and write and write to learn them. She learnt her tables orally and through writing. The 80s way worked much better than the apps for her. Also making sure she gets doubling as it makes it much easier eg if you know 4x6 =24 then you just need to double 24 to get 8x6 =48. I also think a visual multiplication chart is useful as they can see the numbers in context and spot patterns.

My youngest by contrast has absorbed a lot of tables by playing some random games on her tablet despite not being taught tables yet. I suspect she’ll love TTRS.

Putthekettleon73 · 14/10/2025 06:10

I love doodle tables. Really helped my son learn them all, now I'm getting my 7 yr old to do doodle too.

Starlight40 · 14/10/2025 06:12

Hit The button or topmarks.

CrownCoats · 14/10/2025 06:17

Buy flash cards. Far more effective than apps.

CrikeyMajikey · 14/10/2025 06:28

Use regular playing cards and make a game out of it. Take out the Kings, Ace = 1, Jack = 11, Queen = 12. Shuffle and split the pack into 2. Each turn a card over and times your card’s value by her card’s value.

Also, lay one set of 12 out in order (1 to 12) and practice, say 3 times table. Point at 1 and say 3 x 1 etc. Point to the easy cards first, 1 x, 2 x, 5 x, 10 x etc to build confidence then slowly bring in the x they don’t know.

Played this for years with my SEN DC, we still play sometimes having changed the value of the cards as they DC got better, King = 13, Ace = 14, 2 = 15, etc.

user1476613140 · 14/10/2025 06:30

My DC use Hit The Button on Top Marks. Very effective.

GrumpyMuleFan · 14/10/2025 20:09

We tried lots of apps, including some I thought looked fab like the rockstars ones. In the end what worked was a rule that every time we got in the car, regardless of journey time, we’d run through 2 x tables. Only once per day though. We had a car school run, so would do in the morning, but not the return journey. He would say them three times: once together, twice in his own and then I would quiz him on the two tables he’d done. We got really fast and both boys would be done within 10 mins. It really is worth the time. Good luck.

Cuppatea14 · 20/10/2025 10:56

Thanks all, I bought a set of funkey cards, she’s quite a visual learner so I’m hoping these help. Going to start on 3x this week and see how we go!

OP posts:
isthismylifenow · 20/10/2025 11:23

Cuppatea14 · 20/10/2025 10:56

Thanks all, I bought a set of funkey cards, she’s quite a visual learner so I’m hoping these help. Going to start on 3x this week and see how we go!

It is all about rote learning really, so whatever method works best for her, is the one.

The thing is to be consistent.

I am an older parent, and my dc did Kumon back in the day. As much as they (and me, as I had to mark everything) disliked it, now at ages 25 and 22 you can never catch them out with multiplication. It just works but is just constant rote learning.

Yoshiantor · 24/04/2026 14:37

Most times tables apps either run too long or never bring back the facts a kid got wrong two weeks ago, so they look fluent in week one and have forgotten 7x8 by week three. The two things that actually moved the needle for mine were a strict three second per fact target and short sessions, around five minutes. If an app does timed recall and brings back missed facts at widening intervals it will work. If it is just a pretty interface over flash cards it will not.

Tumbler2121 · 24/04/2026 14:44

don't start at 3 times tables, start with one and then two, easier for child to understand and they have immediate success to build on.

What I did with my grandchildren was that they decided which table, say 4. When they were ready I would give them three random questions from the 4s table (always easy, but they had prepared them all)

If they got it right, they had £1. last table, £4 which made it a total of £15 for doing their tables at their own time and initiative.

Boggyjo · 24/04/2026 15:54

Encourage the times table to be worked out by constant addition if you REALLY want them to 'get' times tables.

By adding 6, 7 times for 6 x 7.... 6,12,18,24,30,36,42 and practising this regularly is the best way in the long run. They will natually, eventually know that 6 x 7 = 42, but will also understand why which is immeasuably more powerful for their future learning.

Most children who do not know their times tables in secondary is because they have not been bothered to do the above.

gigglygrace · 24/04/2026 17:09

Another vote for Times Table Rock Stars

Yoshiantor · 24/04/2026 22:05

mathbuilders.com seems to be fairly new but the approach is like how I mentioned earlier and it has a way to focus on the facts that each kids struggles with individually.

emeraldrainbow · 24/04/2026 22:29

‘Hit the Button’ website and try to improve score each time

JamLove83 · 01/06/2026 10:25

Cuppatea14 · 13/10/2025 13:19

My DD (10) doesn’t know her times tables properly, and it’s really holding her back in maths.

We’re going to start all the way back at 3 x tables and work our way up at home, does anyone know of any good online resources, or shall I just bash them into her head 1980’s style?

ZapTables site. Adapts to their ability and keeps them super engaged.

BoyMumNurse · 25/08/2026 11:35

Coming to this late and I can see the OP got sorted with the Funkey cards, but this thread comes up when you search for times tables help so I thought it was worth adding the thing that actually changed it for us, because it is not on the list yet.

Before picking any app or any method, find out which facts she is genuinely missing. Not "the 3 times table", the individual facts. Sit down with a blank grid, or just call them out in a random order, and mark the ones where she hesitates for more than a few seconds. Takes about ten minutes.

The reason it is worth doing is that the job is far, far smaller than it looks. There are 144 facts in a 12 by 12 grid, but 3 x 7 and 7 x 3 are the same fact, so really there are 78. Take out the 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s and 11s, which almost every child already has, and you are down to 28. Take out the squares, which tend to stick early because children like them, and you are left with 21 facts. That is it. Twenty-one.

And they are always the same ones. 6x7, 6x8, 6x9, 7x8, 7x9, 8x9, and the 12s. When my eldest was struggling it turned out he knew everything except about fourteen facts, and he had been carrying around the belief that he was "bad at times tables" for a year. Telling him there were fourteen things left to learn, and writing them on a bit of paper stuck to the fridge, did more for him than any app did. It stopped being a mountain.

Worth knowing too that the 6 second target people mention upthread is not arbitrary. The statutory check they do in Year 4 gives them 6 seconds per question, 25 questions pulled from the 2s to the 12s, and it deliberately asks more from the 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s and 12s. So the exam board has independently worked out where the hard bit is, which is reassuring when you are trying to decide what to prioritise.

On the actual how, I would gently push back on marching up from the 3s in order. It feels systematic but you spend three weeks on facts she already knows and arrive at the hard ones tired. Go straight at the ones she missed, five minutes a day, and revisit anything she got wrong two or three days later rather than the next day. The gap is the bit that makes it stick, which is why an app that just reshuffles the same twelve questions does not work as well as it should.

Resource-wise, Hit the Button (free, Topmarks) is genuinely the best free thing for raw speed and several people have already said so, rightly. TTRS is excellent if the school already uses it and she is engaged with it, less so if she has grown out of it, which Bunnycat101 makes a fair point about. For something that tracks which specific facts are weak and brings those back rather than reshuffling at random, we ended up using mathstutor.me, which is free for a set number of exercises a day and follows the English curriculum. Full disclosure, my DH built it, so obviously take that with a pinch of salt. The Funkey cards and the playing card game upthread do the same job perfectly well if you would rather stay off screens, and honestly the flash cards and the kitchen table method that DominosForDinner described work just as well as anything with a login.

The one thing I would say from experience: consistency beats method by a mile. Five minutes every day, on the same twenty-odd facts, will get you there in a few weeks whatever you use to deliver it.

BoyMumNurse · 26/08/2026 11:12

oh forgot to mention. we use https://mathstutor.me for our DS times tables