How to get DS to learn his times tables ?

[slouchingtowardsBethlehem]

We are not in the UK, and I am increasingly puzzled by the approach to maths adopted at DS's school. The pupils have not been taught their times tables, but they are given sums that assume a knowledge of the tables. This was confirmed today when a teacher said to the class ' you should know your four times table by now'. I don't want to to teach DS his tables myself if I can possibly help it - too much potential for friction. Please can anyone recommend some CD's or ideally online programmes for learning tables ? I see Carol Vordeman has one. Does any one have experience of this please ?

Ta in advance for any recommendations

Times tables xpress for android.

ThreeBeeOneGee, thanks for your kind remarks. It really does work as you have seen. For those who missed it, search for timestables4u. It's very quick and pretty foolproof.

Excellent, thanks.

I'm using the method suggested in TimesTables4u (there's a website)...learn all the facts individually as facts so that they are just there in your head rather than having to recite the whole table to get to 7x12 for example.

I've found out that DD (Y4) actually has very quick recall of all the facts up to 10x10 except the following:
7x7.
7x8 or 8x7.
7x9 or 9x7.
8x8.
8x9 or 9x8.
9x9.

So I'm feeling more positive about the whole thing now.

DS3 (also Y4) has improved his score from 40% to 50% on the horrid hundred test at school (100 speed questions on multiplication and division facts up to 12x12) so feeling positive there too.

"Horrid Hundred" you say?

Am SO stealing that idea for my higher ability set!

We also do "Nifty Fiftys" with younger children

Hi slouchingtowardBethlehem:

Mathsfactor Arithmetic School & other products link here: www.themathsfactor.com/products.aspx

again, I hasten to add this has worked well for us but other parents have sung the praises of mathletics (www.mathletics.co.uk/) and maths whizz (www.whizz.com/) and more recently someone was saying Komodo maths works well (komodomath.com/)

My advice is have an explore, try the practice lessons/ sample videos and think about what style of presentation you know you DC will respond to best. Because we have girls and because DD1 was spouting 'Girls are usually no good at maths' (which I can assure you she isn't picking up at home) - I opted for Mathsfactor because the teacher was female and good at maths. That subliminal message was really important for us. DD1 also had very shaky understanding of how to go about various calculations so needed instruction & practice of concepts. So for her, she couldn't just play games.

I think all of these offer free trial periods and test your child's ability and start from there.

My view is that the practice and the opportunity to really work through these concepts repeatedly is of benefit (especially if the maths curriculum in your school is relatively weak/ unchallenging). We've never looked back and the chaos of lots of homework (OFSTED year) and now no homework (Gove dropping a homework policy & OFSTED long gone) just wash over us.

Dd plays timetable lucky dip which involves writing each fact or 1x7, 2 x7 etc onto little pieces of paper, pull them out of a hat/ box and write down the answer. The challenge is to see how fast she can do 10 correctly. If she isn't sure it goes back in the mix and often she gets it next time around. This is of course done against the clock which really motivates her. We do it with single tables when starting a new one then mix them all up later.
she is 7 and has a pretty solid grasp of 1,2,3,4,5,6,10,11 in that she has immediate recall in any order. Have been learning on and off for about 4 weeks,( more off than on though)