A question about times tables. Teachers? Anyone?

[seeker]

OK, when I was a child (back in the dark ages) children learned their tables by rote. It was boring, but it worked. Now they don't seem to learn them at all at school. My ds is expected to know 2x, 5x and 10x, I think, by the end of year 2. I don't see why by nearly 8 they shouldn't know them all. Once they are learned they are learned forever, and it is such a useful thing to know - even if you never do another bit of formal maths in your life!

There must be a very good reason for dropping learning tables, but I can't for the life of me think what it is. Everything is just SO much easier if you just know that 5x8 is 56!

So does anyone know what the reason is?

They need to be learnt by rote...they went out of favour for a bit but Ruby is right...they are back in. Children should know 2, 5, and 10w by Year 2...but there is no reason why they cannot know more. Do 3 and 4s next.

At our school, they are kind of learnt by rote. Me DS is 8, and coming to the end of P4 here. They have spent the year doing the whole lot - this past month or so is all revision, going over them 'mixed up' etc
It has been hard - agree it is almost easier in the long run to just learn them by heart.

My advice is to "back" up the teaching at home with those wall charts,and CD song things etc. as my son never learned them properly with this "new" method,if we hadn't made him practice more at home he wouldn't know them now in Year 7!!

I completely agree with you, Seeker, but also don't know what the reason is. I suspect it's for the same sort of reasons that 'whole language' reading methods were adopted - a rejection of rote learning as uninspiring. I think it's a kind of 'baby with bathwater' situation and feel the same way about primary school teaching of number facts in general.

They do learn tables, but far too late, I think. My mum bribed DS1 (50p a table) to learn them in Y4 because he was still so shaky.

In the DSs school they've never been sent home tables to learn, even though they get spelling lists and other homework. But suddenly in Y5 they're expected to know them. I think in Y3 they add the 3x and 4x, and in Y4 the 6x and 7x, and then the rest in Y5. In Y5 he does a weekly tables grid thingy at school where they have to fill in the answers.

I'm afraid I resorted to Kumon to din maths facts into my children and, boy, has it worked. Once they know their maths facts automatically, they can use their brain power to work out more complex problems. It's the same as teaching fluent decoding in reading; once they can decode anything, they can concentrate fully on comprehension.

I did a lot of back up with my dd who struggled with maths anyway- and she sort of knows them (she's year 7 now) but it's not the same as the whole class learning them together. If it's something theya re expceted to do at school it's easier than something baty mummy wants them to do!

Glad they are coming back - does anyone know the theory behind them going out in the first place?

Is nobody going to point out that 5x8 isn't 56, or was that a joke?

ES1 (year 3) know all his up to 12 and we practice them in the car/ the bath / wherever!

He also enjoyed a free online game called Timez Attack (google it) which had an ogre bursting out of doors in a castle and firing times table questions at you. The only way you could get to the next level was to know all your tables! Worked for him, and I used to say "when you've finished your homework you can have 1/2 hour on the computer playing Timez Attack"

I know my tables but I can't type!

i discussed this very subject with my sons teacher when he was in Yr4,she said alot of the methods have changed because the newr mwthod has been "shown" to have better results,but that she felt that the old methods should go hand in hand,so she had no "objections" to me trying to teach him that way at home.I had a good example of this when he came home in Yr6 with "long division"!! Like no method I'd ever seen,luckily he coped well,as theres no way I could help with the new way,but had to check using my way to mark them!i remember my parents saying they couldnt cope with school homework much beyond the first few years at senior school,but at least the basics hadnt changed then!!

I remember my dd being in floods of tears about dividing-by-repeated-subtraction! The problem was, she was so wobbly about maths that she invariably made a mistake in one of the first few subtractions and ended up with a bonkers answer that she was too wobbly about maths to relaize was bonkers!

I think I can understand why they don't start teaching tables as early as we might expect. It's because they want the children to understand numbers before they learn by rote. It's a bit like needing to be able to talk before you can learn to read.
For example plenty of children in reception infants could learn to chant the tables, but would not understand the way that numbers work. So they could bark out the answer to 7*9, but would stand no chance of being able to calculate 7 and a half times 9, or 7 times 90.

Having said that I do think they should push them onto tables earlier. My DS in year 2 can work out all the answers up to about 12*12 but doesn't have the quick fire response that I'd expect by now. As soon as they can work the answer out for themselves, they should be ready to learn how much quicker it is if you "just know" the tables.

I agree that year 2 is about right - but they are only expected to know 2, 5 and 10 by the end of year 2!

I'm interested in this "understanding" thing. I agree that in an ideal world understanding would come first. But I think for a lot of people - me included!- that understanding is hard won and takes a long time. SOme children may very well never reach the level where they understand how it all works, but if they have the rote learnt tables in their heads they will know if they have been wrongly charged for 6 apples at 12p each, or something like that. For my dd, they understanding didn't really start til year 6 - but she could more or less keep up - partly because I had drummed the tables into her earlier. It's a bit like saying that you can't drive a car until you know how the engine works...isn't it?

Well I've been teaching for a long time both before the numeract strategy and since. We always taught tables before and they're in the numeracy strategy which came out in 2000 I think.

Children learn 2x, 5x and 10x in Y2 because they tie in nicely with place value which is the cornerstone of the strategy. Say all you like about the teaching of reading or the literacy strategy but the numeracy strategy is a fabulous resource. Far more children have a more solid grasp of basic number work than ever before.

In Y3 the strategy states that children should learn the 3x and 4x. Then the more able kids continue onto the 6x etc. Personally, I teach the 4x first in Y3. The already know the 2x so when they look at the answers written side by side they very quickly see the correlation between the two. This helps to cement the idea that 4 times is double that of 2x so 4 lots of is twice as many as 2 lots of. I then go onto the 8x You'd be amazed at how quickly they see a pattern and pick it up. After that we do 3x followed by 6x (pattern again)

The key to good numeracy teaching is showing them why. Teach them lots of different methods and one will click. Some kids will work out the answer to 8x7 by chanting tables in their head, others by working out 2x7, doubling it then doubling again. Some others will need to visualise it so will draw 8 bags with 7 balls in each therefore using the 'lots of' method. Because they will have done so much place value and pattern work they will also know that if they come up with, say 21 it cannot possibly be correct because it is an odd number.

It's a bad teacher who thinks the only way to learn tables is by rote and that 'knowing' them by rote at 7 is preferable to knowing them at 9.

Btw, you can have a look at the strategy on the DES or better still send off for a copy as it's full of good ideas if you want to practise at home!

seeker, I wonder if you are being overoptimistic as to when children used to know them (or else your school was better than mine ) if you're thinking about them knowing all their tables in year 2.

I remember endless tables practice in my last year of primary (back in the dark days of the 1970s), and many of us were still struggling. I guess most people knew them before going to secondary, but not that long before.

And we were very definitely not taught new maths, or indeed new anything (they were still at the stage of girls doing sewing while boys did mechanical things . . .).

I work in secondary, and a large % of our students (11-16s) do not know their tables sufficiently well to cope with secondary maths.

If you are looking for common denominators, for example, you need to be able to instantly recall the factors of a figure:
i.e. 12 has factors of 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12
32 has factors of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32

Children who do not know their table by rote find things very difficult.

Roisin, of course learning by rote is important. We chant daily! My point was that just learning by rote is not a good thing for 7yr olds.

I know lots of adults who learned their tables by rote and can quickly recall 8x7 but have poor basic numeracy skills.

There is no reason why the vast majority of kids should not enter secondary with a solid understanding of their tables.

I don't think we were expected to know all our tables until around Year 5 when I was at school. I rememeber a chart on the wall and we would get a star for each table we could remember and a gold star when we knew our 12's.

However what I don't like about the way they learn then nowadays is that they teach

2,4,6 etc
rather than
1x2=2
2x2=4

My dc's always seem to need to could 2 4 6 etc and don't know them instantly.

Actually, the new framework for Maths requires Y2 children to have learnt 2x, 5x, 10x, 3x and 4x!

I think the point I am struggling with is the thinking behind a policy that says children need to understand everything before they learn it. I think this is the ideal - but the sad fact is that a lot of children may never understand - and if they don't understand and don't know that 6x8 =48 they are going to be hugely disadvantaged in life. My dd is a "late developer" in maths - it might as well have been Sanskrit for all she understood in primary school. We live in an 11&divid; area (god help us -if you think I hate SATS with a passion, you should hear me on the 11+!) and I realized that she had very little chance of passing the maths part because she was so slow at basic calculations. Having to work out what 6x8 is on your fingers every time you need to know it can do that to you! So I concentrated on learning tables up to 12x. She is now thriving and enjoying maths in year 7 at grammar school (6C at the last assessment ) The point of all this is that if I had waited until she understood the mathematical principles behind what she was doing it would have been too late. In her case because she would have missed an opportunity that suits her - in the case of some others because once they get to secondary school they switch off.

Sorry, rant over!

Learning tables has never been 'out'. They need to know them with instant recall - the only way is to learn them by rote. They need to understand them but it is one of the easier concepts to understand and after that it is practise, practice and more practise. Once you have it you never forget.

I can't remember a time when we did have to lear times tables that early TBH. I am 35, so was educated in the 70s and 80s. I can clearly rememebr the year I was expected to know my times tables from 1x1 to 12x12. It was in the first yer of middle school, by Christmas - so the equivalent of Christmas Y5. So no where near as early as many schools do it now.

DD is in the equivalent of Y1 and can count in 10s, 5s and 2s - but they don;t say it at 1x10 i... etc at the moment. The Y3 class I help out in seem to know most of the others too (said in full) to varying degrees.

hmm, ds in year six was learnign them all in year 2