How to help your child learn their times tables

Why times tables are worth the effort

Multiplication facts are not the goal in themselves. They are the tool that makes the next few years manageable: long division, fractions, area, ratio and algebra all slow to a crawl if every 7 × 8 has to be worked out by counting. A child who knows the facts can spend their attention on the new idea instead.

Expectations differ by country. In the US, the Common Core standards ask children to multiply and divide fluently within 100 and, by the end of grade 3, to know from memory all products of two one-digit numbers. In England, the national curriculum expects the 2, 5 and 10 tables in Year 2, the 3, 4 and 8 tables in Year 3, and every table up to 12 × 12 by the end of Year 4.

Understanding comes before memorizing

A child who memorizes "six fours are twenty-four" as a sound pattern has nothing to fall back on when memory fails. A child who knows it means 6 groups of 4 can rebuild it in seconds. Spend the first weeks on what multiplication is.

• Arrays. Lay out coins, buttons or cereal in rows: 3 rows of 5 is 3 × 5. Turn the tray around and it becomes 5 rows of 3, still 15. This one picture explains why the order doesn't matter.
• Skip counting. Counting 4, 8, 12, 16 out loud while tapping fingers is the bridge between adding and multiplying. Stairs, a hopscotch grid or tossing a ball back and forth all work.
• Real groups. Pairs of socks (× 2), fingers on a hand (× 5), legs on a chair (× 4), eggs in a box of 6 or 12. Ask: how many legs on 3 chairs?
• Story problems. "There are 7 bags with 3 apples in each" is 7 × 3. Have your child invent a story for a fact, too.

A sensible order, and why

Learn the easiest and most useful tables first, then use them as stepping stones to the harder ones. That way your child is never learning a table from scratch.

• × 10, × 2 and × 5 first. Their patterns are easy to hear and see: tens, doubles, and fives that always end in 5 or 0.
• × 4 next, as double the 2s, then × 8 as double the 4s.
• × 3, then × 6 as double the 3s.
• × 9, which has a reliable trick.
• × 7 last. By then almost every 7 fact is already known from another table.
• × 11 and × 12 for children in England, or anywhere else they are expected.

This is close to the order used in England (2, 5 and 10, then 3, 4 and 8, then the rest), and it works just as well for children in the US.

The turnaround rule halves the work

3 × 8 and 8 × 3 give the same answer. Once your child truly believes that (the turned-around array proves it), the 100 facts on a 10 × 10 grid shrink to 55 different ones, and the 144 facts on a 12 × 12 grid shrink to 78.

It gets better. Once the 1s, 2s, 5s, 9s and 10s are secure, the only facts left up to 10 × 10 are the ones that use just 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8. There are 15 of them. Writing them on a single card can make the whole job feel finite.

A strategy for each table

• × 2: doubles. 2 × 7 is 7 + 7 = 14.
• × 10: each digit moves one place to the left and a zero fills the ones place, so 10 × 6 = 60.
• × 5: half of × 10. 5 × 8 is half of 80, which is 40.
• × 4: double, then double again. For 4 × 7, double 7 is 14 and double 14 is 28.
• × 8: double three times. For 8 × 6: 12, 24, 48.
• × 3: double, then add one more group. 3 × 7 is 14 + 7 = 21.
• × 6: five groups and one more. 6 × 7 is 35 + 7 = 42. Or double the 3s: 3 × 7 = 21, so 6 × 7 = 42.
• × 9: ten groups take away one. 9 × 7 is 70 - 7 = 63. Or the finger trick: hold up ten fingers, fold down the 7th, and read 6 fingers to the left and 3 to the right: 63. The digits of each answer up to 9 × 10 also add up to 9.
• × 7: with the order above, 7 × 7 = 49 is the only new fact. Every other 7 fact up to 10 × 10 is already known from another table.
• × 11: up to 11 × 9 the digit repeats (11 × 4 = 44). Then learn 11 × 10 = 110, 11 × 11 = 121 and 11 × 12 = 132.
• × 12: ten groups plus two groups. 12 × 7 is 70 + 14 = 84.

A handful of facts tend to stay stubborn, especially 6 × 8, 7 × 8, 6 × 7 and square numbers like 8 × 8. Give these extra attention and a hook to hang them on, such as "5, 6, 7, 8: 56 is 7 × 8."

Short daily practice beats long sessions

Five to ten minutes a day does more than an hour on Sunday. Keep it light: a few facts in the car, at breakfast or on the walk to school. Mix facts from tables already learned with the one being worked on, and ask the division facts too: if 6 × 7 = 42, then 42 ÷ 7 = 6.

Spaced review is the other half of the job. A table learned in October will fade by December unless it comes back. A practice guide from the US Institute of Education Sciences recommends reviewing key material again after a delay of several weeks to several months. At home, that can be as simple as keeping a pile of "known" cards and shuffling a few into every session.

Games that actually help

• Multiplication war. Each player turns over two cards and multiplies them; the bigger product wins all four cards. Use aces as 1, jacks as 11 and queens as 12, and take out the kings.
• Dice products. Roll two dice and multiply. When that is easy, use 10-sided dice.
• Times table bingo. Each player writes nine products on a 3 by 3 grid. Call out facts such as 6 × 4, and the first to cover a line wins.
• Fact spotting. Find multiplication in the world: 4 packs of 6 yogurts, 3 rows of 8 seats, 5 cars with 4 wheels each.
• Beat your own score. Once a week, see how many of 20 facts your child gets right, and compare only with last week, never with a sibling or classmate.

Anxiety and timed tests

Some children freeze when a clock is running, even on facts they know. If that sounds like your child, separate the two skills. Build accuracy first with no timer at all, add gentle time pressure only once they are confident, and let them race their own earlier score rather than a deadline.

For families in England, knowing the facts about the Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check can take the fear out of it. It takes place in June, with 25 questions on the tables up to 12 × 12 and 6 seconds for each one. There is no pass mark. Schools use it to see which children need more support, and the teacher shares your child's score with you. Telling your child this plainly often helps.

Never use times tables as a punishment, and avoid "You should know this by now." Try instead: "That one's still new. Let's work it out: what's 5 × 7, and then one more 7?"

Signs the facts are secure

• Answers come straight away, without counting up from the start of the table.
• Your child can switch to division easily: 56 ÷ 8 is 7, because 7 × 8 is 56.
• They use facts inside bigger problems, such as 40 × 7 = 280 or 3/4 of 32.
• The facts are still there after a week or two off.

Keeping it going

Once the facts are in, a minute or two of mixed review a few times a week keeps them there. Eurekami's Daily Practice works on the same principle, bringing back skills that are starting to fade alongside the ones being learned, and its math games give stars for practice without changing what the skill map counts as mastered. Whatever you use, little and often wins.