When to start teaching children times tables by rote

[Happysummer]

My DD is year 4 and I was speaking to a friend about how she is learning all her times tables as they need to know up to x12 by the end of year 4. Her DD is at a different school, in Y1, and quite frankly she scoffed and said her daughter is learning them at home now, and any parent who doesn't do this is lazy.

I'm personally not convinced of the merits of rote learning. My DD is quite able in maths and I would have thought having a good grasp of bonds, addition, subtraction, fractions etc is a good foundation before moving on to all the times tables.

I'm curious, is there a benefit to teaching by rote? Would doing so at home be beneficial from year 1? I assume as this isn't a requirement until year 4, you're asking the child to run before they can walk. But I may be wrong!

As a baby, before they can talk.

If I had my time with DD again, I'd sing times table songs every nappy change, perhaps then she'd be better on 7 x 8 and all those middling-y ones that get forgotten.
Reason being, when she was dinky I was so bored out of my brain on my own in the countryside with no car, so she WAS my only company so I talked to her all the time, and left pauses for her to answer back. No coincidence she spoke early (didn't walk early without holding on ).
When changing nappies, or putting clothes on I invented this little tune and sang 'we put the right one on first and theeeennnnn the left one is the one that is left. '
When DD was at infants, she was in the school play leading the soldiers marching because she was the ONLY one out of 30 who reliably knew her left from right - and she could follow a map.
The only reason I can think is that silly tune, which I probably gave up on long before she was two, so I regret not trying silly tunes for times tables, maths is NOT her strong point!

I keep asking friends with newborns if they'll sing eg 8x table to them every nappy change and see if that has a material outcome in later years. I'm convinced baby's ability to soak up information is VASTLY underestimated. Still waiting for them to get old enough to prove my point.

Lol Ariela

I used to talk to the ds about square roots. (I’m a bit obsessed with them.)

He is now very good at maths but the whole nature vs nurture thing raises its head here.

dont give up on silly songs especially in the car - mine is 13 and I still love to annoy her with a good silly rhyme

We learned them just as a song/chant before understanding the concept of multiplication at all--this is quite common in Japan.

It meant that once we moved onto actually "doing" multiplication at school and doing little word problems that require understanding, it was easier for her. Because the actual "remembering 6 x 6" was already down pat and was completely automatic, it meant she had more mental energy left over for understanding the conceptual part of the problem. My daughter is not naturally very talented at maths (just being honest!) so anything that reduces the mental load when she is struggling with a problem is really helpful. I am sure that children who are very talented at maths can probably "get away" with being less fluent on their tables, but why take the risk when it is hard to predict whether or not your child will be one of the ones who struggles when the maths gets hard?

I wish loads of people would sing their 8x table to their baby every nappy change and report back on how well they know 8x vs any other x table when at school....just curious!

There are some schools of thought that young kids are naturally great at and enjoy memorising stuff so why not get them to memorize useful stuff that will help later on.

There are some schools of thought that think learning in context/by use is more effective and efficient.

I think both have merit and it really depends on the kid and/or teacher. If the kid is happy learning the rote tables then good for them, my kids memorised all the bloody Pokemon...

Generally I see multiplication tables taught around 3rd grade.

My native country teaches all the times table to 7/8 years old by rote by repetition, in short period of time. But a lot of parents teach them when they are younger. It's one of the top country in PISA.

Ariela, we bought times table poster and hang up on the wall in his room when my ds was 2, from library, since he was obsessed with numbers.
Never chanted or made him to memorise, but he knew all of them when he started school at 4.

For singing while nappy changing, I didn't sing times tables, but sang number song which counted 1 to 10, and he was already saying numbers when he can hardly talk, and became really good with numbers.

They did a lot of the initial groundwork underpinning multiplication and basic multiplication and division work with various types of apparatus in Y1 with DD1 - lots of counting in number patterns - generally 2, 5, 10. Now they're doing it with the number sentence format introduced in Y2 and starting with things like the 3x table at the moment judging from the conversations going on in the car of late.

Of course my eldest was not impressed when she was trying to count in threes and the younger sibling informed her it was "just don't say two numbers and then say the next one" - the indignant face was a picture!

We were fairly good at counting up in 2s and odds/evens and the reason in terms of things being divisible by 2 (in terms of could you share it in Haribo between you and your sister fairly - sod cubes, counters, numicon or anything else... mathematical understanding via the medium of Haribo is the way to go in this house!) a couple of weeks after starting Reception after numerous conversations about why the house numbers didn't go up 1, 2, 3, 4...

I wish loads of people would sing their 8x table to their baby every nappy change and report back on how well they know 8x vs any other x table when at school....just curious!

ariela we had ‘Three is the Magic Number’ on a bedtime music CD and I can report that both DC have picked up the 3x table almost instantly.

I agree the 7s and 8s would have been more useful. Benefit of hindsight!

Oh yes, and seconding TT Rockstars - totally brilliant.

My friend is saying all up to x12 she is teaching now at age 5/6. I wondered what the benefit of this is

Dear God, and we wonder why kids have burnout and MH issues later on. I am an old gimmer and we did 2, 5 and 10 first approx age 6, then 6, 7, 9 and 11 by age 8 and I clearly remember dealing with 12 in ‘top class’ which is current Year 6. That was quite nicely paced, did nobody any harm and I can’t remember anyone not being able to do them.

By rote of course, with lots of chanting and rhythm (I’m a musician so this really helped me).

Why would learning the times tables at 5 lead to burnout and mental health problems later?

How you do it might come into play, but generally the teaching of it is unlikely to be an issue.

I teach maths and agree with PP that although Times tables are boring and yes you can work them out quickly it is absolutely vital that you also know them quickly by rote. That way I can look at for example 5/6 + 7/24 and know that 6 goes into 24 and quickly turn 2/6 into 20/24. Likewise I can see 399 divided by 21 and think hey 21 = 3*7 let's do 399/3 = 133 then 133/7 = 19.

Obviously it's tedious to learn times tables by rote and I would never encourage children to just sit chanting them out for hours. I'd go for little and often and preferably use an app (e.g. times tables rock stars) where you can keep track of your progress.

I do agree with gobbin though that there's absolutely no benefit of shoving times tables down the throats of younger and younger kids. My son is 6 and loves maths - if he wants to do extra maths I'll encourage him to solve more tricky reasoning problems, no way in hell would I get him to sit and learn times tables by heart at this age - awful idea! He does know lots of times tables but he's learned them organically just by figuring them out enough times. This is ideal. He's building up the knowledge without the tedium.

@NoSquirrels
See, I knew it! Just never managed a 2nd child to prove it.

Why would learning the times tables at 5 lead to burnout and mental health problems later?

Essentially it's developmentally inappropriate. Children need to have a very solid grasp of the concepts before moving on to this kind of abstract learning. At 5 or 6 kids still learn in a practical hands on way. For example here are 24 beads let's share them between 3 people how many beads each? I have four friends and want to give them 5 sweets each how many sweets do I need. Let's draw a picture to work it out. Some children will do this easily some will struggle.

By forcing children to simply learn the times tables by rote before they have a really solid grasp of what they even mean and well before a time when they're going to be regularly using them you divorce maths from reality and confuse them. It's also inappropriate developmentally for kids to be sitting still just learning off by heart at that age. They need to be doing activities that are more interactive.

I don't think most children will have a break down because they're taught times tables too early but it will have a negative impact and if the entire education system is not developmentally appropriate then yes it can lead to long term stress in young children which leads to mental health issues.

It's just a chant, seriously. My daughter picked it up same as she would pick up any other fun song or nursery rhyme. We just played the CD and she picked it up naturally. Understanding the concept of multiplication came later.

It may sound odd but there's no maths involved in learning times tables. You learn them by repetition as with nursery rhymes and Christmas carols.
A four year old can easily remember the two times table is chanted a few times. They're remembering words, not computing numbers.

I think your friend is a bit odd about starting in year 1, and I'm not convinced that they need they by year 4, but they really do need them by the end of primary.

I tutor kids for the 11+, and when I teach certain parts of the maths, those who don't know their times tables do struggle.
These bright child, who can understand complex ideas, but they don't have the basic functional skills

eg, doing algebra, and they have something like 6a=24, they get stuck on the mechanics of 24 divided by 6, and are counting in 6's on their fingers. This totally distracts from learning the concept of how the equation works, and it also makes them incredibly slow at solving problems.

I notice that kids who can go - 6,12,18,24,30,36 etc think that they have learnt their tables. I have to persuade them that they need to know 6x4=24 as a fact separate from counting in sixes.

They need to know them as 4x6 and 6x4 and 24 divided by 4 and 24 divided by 6. Then they know them!

We're doing them now.
Dd is 7 and in year 3. She already did 2/5/10 in school and we have started at 12
and are going down. She asked to do them that way, hardest first.

We do them during bath and shower times every night.

I did the exact same thing with ds who is now 15 and it really worked. He was year 3 when I started and knew them all by the end of the school year. Slow and steady.

I should add that dd2 is now year 6, since year 4 they have had regular times table homework and tests. She knows hers really well, and I would say most of the class do, but there are a few who are still getting there.

Towards end of yr2 is when DC started (1s, 2s & 5s), with lots of work on all of them by end of yr3. Was start of yr5 when I was a kid for the harder tables. All that seemed to work well. I don't see value of ordinary 5 yr olds trying to learn them.

Learning them in a chant isn't really teaching them anything. They gain no understanding they're learning a sequence of sounds - and not a very interesting one. When they're very little their brains are primed to learn language not a string of numbers they don't yet connect with reality. If you just teach them to sing it as a rhyme it won't do any great harm but it's a waste of time that could be spent on something more engaging.

HomeMade, I am not sure. When my ds learned times table, he wasn't vocal enough to tell us if he understood the concept or not. Over the years, I wasn't sure he really did or not. But knowing what 7 x 8 instantly did make things easier. Now he is old enough for me to know he understands, and he can spend times doing more interesting works rather than just spending time repeating and chanting mindlessly something he learned it years ago.