times tables, anyone tried a CD to help with learning them?

[Linnet]

dd1 has a lot of trouble with her times tables.

We had parents night last night and once again, as happens every year, we were told that she's struggling and to keep practising etc.

We do practise them, every single night before bed and also on the way to school in the mornings. She plays times tables games on the computer and I've now resorted to buying a CD with them being sung on it.

I've been a bit reluctant to get the cd's as they always sing them the wrong way round from the way she's taught them at school.
We're in Scotland and we say 4x1,4x2,4x3 etc where as the Cd's do them the other way round.
Do these CD's actually help? anyone know? Has anyone elses child managed to master them using the Cd?

the thing that frustrates me is that she does actually know them but seems to go blank when asked one. She lacks a lot of confidence when it comes to maths and seem to be constantly worried that she's going to get it wrong which panics her even more.

what else can I do to help her? please advise if you can.
on a lighter note my times tables have improved immensely with all the practising

We tried cds, posters, books, games and just simple parrot fashion learning. All of them helped a bit, but they are just one of those things that you get with time. DD has always struggled with the tables and I was told the same thing in every parent evening from yr3 right up to yr6. She's now started secondary school and we tried even more over the summer to get them in her brain and to stay in, but she still doesn't know them all! However, she is in the top set for maths and I have already been told she is likely to get a better than everage grade in her GCSE.

Personally, I wouldn't stress too much. Just keep repeating them with her, it will go in evenually. You need to work out what type of learning she is best with. I can't remember what they're all called, but one is visual, one is audio. Have you tried getting her to write them? That seems to be the only one you havent tried yet!

I'm glad I have seen this thread tonight! I'm currently stressing about times tables with my DD1 who is 9 and is in Year 4. She is in the top set for Maths and the teacher says I don't need to worry about her but I've spotted that she doesn't know her times tables very well. I'm a TA so I know that schools don't make the children rote-learn tables anymore (like when I was at school - sounding my age!). Now, parents are expected to do the ground work with their children and the school just does a random times tables test once a week.

From my experience, this just isn't working and I now have a bit of a bee in my bonnet - why aren't the teachers/TAs doing this in class as it's very easy to have a class of children chanting out times tables and then they remember them! However, it's not so easy to teach your own child 1 to 1 as they are not interested in doing it with you.

Any thoughts and advice on this please?

I play the one from ELC every day in the car, ds2 demands it, and a bit should be going in.....

Come on Caro - as a TA you know there is no time in the frantic NC timetable to learn tables

Yeah right!

As a teacher of a SEN set for many years - all my children had real trouble retaining the times tables. SOngs, games and rhymes of any kind really helped. We also used these fantastic websites
www.primarygames.co.uk
www.mathszone.co.uk
There are loads of games with time trials which really appeal to them - they love to beat each other.
That and daily practise and it must be daily! I had a laminated sheet filled with times tables and they had to see how many they could do in 2 minutes. By the end of the spring term some were completing the sheet (it had about 70 questions on)

Thanks scoggins - I'll take a look at the websites.

I bought \link{http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320184845303} this one for ds1 (6). We've been playing it whenever we're in the car and he's picked them up very quickly from it.

Or even this one