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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Do you know your Times Tables?

49 replies

homefitness · 28/09/2010 23:34

Ok thoughts - todays child and last years child......Which one knows their Times Tables better- off by heart?

Answer - I think is the child of the past......More and more I think children do not learn the way they, or should I say we learned it!!

OP posts:

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suzikettles · 28/09/2010 23:37

I have to think a bit about 7x8 otherwise I know them by heart.

We recited them over and over at school but I found it really hard to get them to stick. I'm glad we had all that reinforcement or I'd not have had a hope at remembering them.

Original poster

homefitness · 28/09/2010 23:44

I'm with you on that one!!

sometimes its the only way repeat repeat repeat!!!

OP posts:

magicmummy1 · 28/09/2010 23:49

I know all mine - and I use them! Rote learning works for some things!!

My OH was educated overseas, and he was forced to memorise up to 20 x 20. His mental maths is amazing!

TheFallenMadonna · 28/09/2010 23:50

I learned them by heart aged 7. DS is 9, and could tell you the answer to any of them, but couldn't recite them. He remember some, and works out the other. I'm happy as long as he can get a correct answer quickly. I don't think rote learning and remembering has any additional merit over calculating other than speed.

myredcardigan · 28/09/2010 23:55

Well we still teach them by rote but when I teach them I try to bring patterns in too to help give them meaning,

So I'd teach 2x followed by 4x, followed by 8x and show the patterns. Then 3x followed by 6x. We look for patterns all the way through. The 7x is really the only one you just need to learn.

When I learned it was just by rote so although I know them, I just 'learned them' rather than totally understood them at the time IYKWIM. Oh and we start 2x, 5x and 10x in Y1 now. I'm sure I was junior age when we were taught them.

DreamTeamGirl · 28/09/2010 23:56

When do they do them?

I know all mine- and relearnt/ reminded myself when I got the Brain training game on the DS- 7*8 was my only sticking point too LOL
Was telling DS that we used to walk to school reciting them, and then he wanted to hear them and know what it all was, so we spent breakfast the last 2 days writing them out
He sussed the pattern for the 11 really quickly written down, but no concept at all orally
No idea tho when they do it at school, and want to make sure I dont teach hime 'wrongly'- he is such a pedant that he would struggle to relearn

hmc · 29/09/2010 00:27

I know all mine. Dd hasn't a fucking hope in hell since she is dyslexic (poor working memory). Rote learning is shit universal one size doesn't fit all style of 'learning' (scoffs audibly)

Don't think it matters. That is what calculators are for - and heck, they even had those in the 70s when I was a lass!

RobynLou · 29/09/2010 00:34

I never learnt mine, I was meant to, had weekly tests and everything, I was just bloody lazy!
I can do 2/5/9/10 anything else I have to work out.
It's a total pain in the arse.
when DD is older I will be ensuring she learns them!

MaMoTTaT · 29/09/2010 00:42

tokyonambu · 29/09/2010 01:04

Odd that often schools still teach 11x and 12x, which are legacies of needing to deal with pence (12 in a shilling), inches (12 in a foot) and things priced in dozens. As essentially none of those are relevant today, it would seem sensible to stop at 10.

RoadArt · 29/09/2010 06:06

I have relearned them all because of my DC

ayjayjay · 29/09/2010 06:16

I think it's a shame they don't learn them by rote anymore. They're the building blocks of mental arithmetic and make problem solving much easier.

cory · 29/09/2010 07:19

I know it, dd knows it, dh (who went to Latymer's in the 70s) is not very confident at all. Ds is being made to learn it.

Tokyo, I doubt that 11x and 12x is merely the legacy of pence and inches: they are taught on the Continent too; I had to learn them in Sweden and we were 100% metrical.

PopCrackleSnap · 29/09/2010 07:30

Teachers don't always understand how hard it is for dyslexic children. If they have sequencing problems, counting trough the table is hard, and so is working it out by calculating it from some nearby answer, because it just one more step and one more number to have in their heads. It would be ideal if they could just learn them by rote, maybe more important than for non dyslexic people. But rote learning is really hard too, specially if they have auditory problems or short term memory problems. Lots of dyslexic children are visual or multisensory learners. Sometimes a table square on a desk is the best solution for those who just can't learn by rote!

cory · 29/09/2010 07:51

Schools must differ a fair bit. Both my dcs (good, but not outstanding state school according to Ofsted) have had to learn them, but I notice that a fair few of the undergraduates I teach are aghast at the thought of having to learn something by heart: they don't believe the human brain can do it.

RobynLou · 29/09/2010 07:55

really cory? wow!
I might not have learnt my CSE. that was only a decade ago, it can't have changed that much surely?!?!

ShadeofViolet · 29/09/2010 08:03

I know mine, and my DS1 knows his (he is 9) - at his school he does a times table a week and cant progress to the next one until he knows the last - once they have done that they move to doing a test where they have a mixture - 55 questions in 5 minutes, then 66 in 5 minutes and so on until they reach 109 in 5 minutes.

DS is currently on the last test - but he loves figures. His spellings are not going so well :)

StarlightMcKenzie · 29/09/2010 08:10

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

cory · 29/09/2010 08:11

well, robyn, I am a little suspicious to be fair: I wouldn't take everything undergraduates say at face value; I remember well teaching one of my dad's former pupils and being told that we never learnt x, y and z when I knew perfectly well what he did teach.

lovecheese · 29/09/2010 08:14

I know mine inside out ;

DD could tell me in minute detail about Germany invading Poland at the start of WWII but would glaze over if I asked her what 7x8 is. A case then for a skill not being inherited.....

overmydeadbody · 29/09/2010 08:16

I know mine by heart but that's only beacuse I teach them by rote to my kiddies.

As a child I didn't know them. As a teacher I now do

And I teach them to children so they know them off by heart.

piscesmoon · 29/09/2010 08:23

They need to know them. It holds them back and slows them down if they can't have instant recall. I explain to them that I only know mine because I got them off by heart at their age. Now, as a teacher, I can do it on automatic pilot. I have recommended BBC Skillswise grid game here and parents have said that it was helpful.

CloudsAway · 29/09/2010 09:58

Yes, I know them.

There was a thread on this the other day and I said it all there, but yes, I think it's important that children try to learn them, with instant recall. I don't care how they do it - doesn't have to be by reciting them, if they want to use visual or other methods that suit their learning style - what matters is the instant recall bit. It's not going to be possible for all children, many who will find the memory aspect hard. And it's not the be all and end all; more important is that they understand, and that they have ways of getting the answer when needed. Many excellent mathematicians don't know their tables and have managed to get on fine without it. But for average or weak children, instant recall of the tables just makes it easier to follow the maths they do later on, and not get put off. It gives lots of advantages in terms of speed and mental maths and recognising patterns and so on - not that these things can't be done without tables learned, particularly for those who are good at maths, but they are a lot easier if you can instantly recall them.

So I think yes, by all means, teach them by memory (alongside understanding). Find multisensory ways that suit different learning styles. Don't give speeded tests or competitions in such a way as to publicly humiliate those who are dyslexic or otherwise struggle with verbal memory - be sensitive about it, and make allowances where needed. Make games out of it. Use stories, rhymes, visual methods, colour, kinaesthetic methods, songs, clocks, patterns. Be flexible with those who aren't able to learn them, but who are getting on well otherwise. Practise them regularly and frequently, and in random order.

emptyshell · 29/09/2010 10:24

I was always slightly wonky on 6s and 7s at school - I've got much much much faster with them since I started teaching, and I always put some of maths tutoring time into practising them. With some of the kids I work with I'm not so much pushing for instant recall, more not-instant terror when confronted with one - so we work a lot on using ones you know to work out ones you don't and other strategies in the interim - anything to get over the "can't do it" immediate shutdown aspect of things.

The one that's a minor nuisance to me is when kids can count up in a unit till the cows come home - 5 10 15 20 25 30... but have no understanding that you can use that to work out what 3x5 is!

MaMoTTaT · 29/09/2010 10:30

I should add that when I was a kid I did know them off by heart - but had mostly forgotten then and resort to adding up quickly (generally only takes me a few seconds) by the time I hit exam age

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