Times Tables

[shebird]

Can any teacher out there tell me if it is part of the curriculum to learn times tables? My DD is in Y3 and her teacher said they no longer learn them by rote as such as they know their number bonds. I'm a bit alarmed by this and so I've started learning them with her at home. Just wondered what the norm is?

We learn tables from Y2
"Derive and recall multiplication facts for the 2, 5 and 10 times-tables and the related division facts; recognise multiples of 2, 5 and 10"

Y3
Derive and recall multiplication facts for the 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 10 times-tables and the corresponding division facts; recognise multiples of 2, 5 or 10 up to 1000"

Thanks Mrz- they have done some at school but there hasn't been any drive to learn them at home and really drill them as I thought there would be. Do you learn by rote as we did in the good old days or is there some new fluffy method DDs teacher is using that perhaps I'm not aware of?

Yes we sing them with the aim of having automatic recall

I'm not a teacher but dd has a tables/division test every week (she's year 3) and once a month all the juniors do as many tables questions as possible in 5 minutes, the best seem to do about a hundred in less than 3 minutes. I do a lot at home on tables with dd though so that she does OK in the tests, I' m not sure if they learn them by rote in class.

Ours start in reception by learning to count in 2's, 5's and 10's. Then they learn the times tables by rote via a song that's played at the beginning of every maths lesson (every day) from year 1 and reinforced with various activities through the year. DS is in year 2 (very good at maths) and has done is 2, 5, 10, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9 and 11's this year. Possibly not in that order and he can also do his 7's and 12's but not by rote

Y3 DS has learnt all his tables (set as homework by school). He is regularly tested and expected to improve his speed of recall.

I'm not sure what's happening with tables in DDs class then I have got a really good cd which sings and then tests the tables so I think I will keep working on this with her. Very alarmed that they appear not to be learning what they should!

They start tables in Y1 and Y2, I think, and dd in Y3 has 8s and 9s left (she loathes tables, but I persevere!)

Thoroughly recommend Percy Parker CD, or iPad app

mrz, what tune do you sing the tables to? Sounds good...

Percy Parker here too. You can get the app on your iphone if you have one. My DC love singing it in the back of the car

Hi. I am a Maths tutor. I tutor lots of people with dyscalculia, difficulties with number and for general maths to young children. A lot of my time is spent teaching the timestables and I've been quite successful. You can check out my blog post and video www.adrianbeckett.co.uk/year-3-6/help-children-to-memorise-their-timestables/

I think the following are key:
exposure. a lot and often but NOT as a drill e.g 1 x 6.... Songs can help, but I don't think there is any deep understanding but it's rather learning by rote
using the number components. e.g 7 timestables is 7, 7 + 3 = 10, 10 +4 = 14 etc..... to
the sounds of the timestables e.g 6 x 6 = 36. Stress the sixes
finding difficult ones from easy ones e.g 7 x 6 is 5 x6 = 30 and add on to more sixes. This can be confusing so use cards for this.

I would expect students to know their timestables by the end of Year 4.

Hope that helps.

mrz ah - you use Percy. Actually, I think you were the one who recommended him to me! We have him everywhere at home - iPad, phone, dvd in car. dd2 loves it, but dd1 has gone off him. Probably because dd2 loves him

I like the computer game bigbrainz