Times Tables by heart?

My principal use for times tables is, of course, on Countdown! It's more difficult once it gets past 12 x 12 though.

I'm rather late coming in on this one, but like everyone else, can speak from experience. Being a smarty pants, I knew my times tables at age 7 and could also recognise the patterns within them, eg. that if you took the 9x lines out of all the preceding tables, and put them together you could go a long way to making up the 9x table, and so on.

I think tables are a useful tool for life and feel for those who can't relate to them. The example of the (bright) young helper dashing for his calculator is a case in point.

I did read somewhere that around 20% of adults in this country are functionally illiterate (so I'm guessing that could mean that they can't write a letter that is grammatically correct?) and even worse, 40% are functionally innumerate. Presumably that would mean they can't work with numbers at any meaningful level.

This is despite the best efforts of teachers through the years. So something needs to be done.

Tables may not enable someone to calculate the surface area of Jupiter, (no, nor me!) but they will surely be useful day to day when dealing with, eg. cash transactions. Invaluable, I'd say.

sallyswin The rot set in well and truly when cash tills started not only to add up how much a customer was to pay, but to tell the shop assistant how much change they were to get. No need for anyone even to be able to count out the difference between the amount owed and the amount tendered, let alone add it up and work out how much is due.

Will never forget manning a refreshment stall recently with a 16year old helper. Customer wanted 4 Orange squashes at 10p each and handed over £1, whereupon my helper shot off to get his calculator. Customer and I stood open mouthed. I later learned that he was considered 'quite bright'!

Not true LizR everyone needs a basic grasp of our number system. And can I repeat for those who didn't get it first ir second time, learning the tables is already a requirement in the National Curriculum, it's the testing at end of KS2 that's new (and unneccessay)

But Liz how do they do a quick estimate if they can't do the mental sum needed? How do they know, say, that six of something at £7.45 is somewhere halfway between six sevens (£42) and six eights (£48) so is about £45?

"Children who are failing"-nightmare phrase! Takes me back to things I prefer to forget-not the children or the real teaching but the growing requirement to 'teach to the test' which is getting steadily worse. So pleased I am out of it!

In these days when calculators are freely available, rote learning is an unnecessary chore. Children should be able to estimate to make sure their answers make sense, so should understand the principle of serial addition (multiplication). This extra imposition by the govt. puts an unfair burden on children who find rote learning difficult. As for govt's claim that it will help teachers to identify children who are 'failing', I think they know that already. Despair!

lily @ 16:30: absolutely spot on. Testing for testing's sake rather than to find out something useful about what kids have learned.

I agree with you, Pen.
Whenever something is mentioned in schools as in all pupils will have to know or learn.... the assumption is always that they have not been learning it up til then, and usually they have. It will turn out to be another stick to beat the teachers with.

My thirteen year old grandson loves the fact that he is better at his tables than his eight year old sister. That doesn't happen often as he is autistic.
She has learnt them by rote, but I have taught him them as facts to remember which is what he is good at. It makes everything else in maths faster.
He says maths is fun, and algebra is just puzzles.

Anyone notice that Nicky Morgan would not answer when asked what seven eights were? It was I will get asked this all the time and everyone will remember the one I got wrong. Why would she get one wrong? She's older than eleven, isn't she?

That's interesting Penstemmon. In our day we learnt our tables in ascending order, whereas these days I see they are taught 2, 5, 10, then 3, 4, 8 a year later, then finally 6, 7, 9. That would imply they are using the tables step by step for other mathematical skills, so surely testing of the tables on their own will be a flawed exercise.

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/425601/PRIMARY_national_curriculum.pdf

Look at p.126 onwards for what 9-11 year olds are already being taught in Maths.

It seems to me to be a case of it ain't what you do but the way that you do it matters here. We all agree that its very useful to know the times tables. Good teachers use a multiplicity of ways of teaching and embedding them in children's minds. Those games mentioned earlier eg Buzz are a great way ahead. However, education can't always be fun. Sometimes plain old concentration, listening and thinking are required. Are modern children less likely to possess these skills these days? That's an honest enquiry btw. I wonder about children brought up on 10 minute easy watching tv programmes and no requirement to listen for any length of time.

Anya I am unclear what your 2+2=5 comment refers to.

I cannot say it any clearer: Learning tables is a good thing (btw I am a socialist! )

Using a test done on a computer under strict time constraint to measure a child's recall of x tables and then using this to judge how good a school is is nonsense!!

In some schools the phonic test shows good results but the children's reading and writing levels are average but in other schools with lower phonic test scores children do better in reading and writing. Obviously there will be places where both are strong and both weak.

What I am trying to illustrate is that you need to see the big picture to make a judgement about the quality of education not focus on a few easy to measure aspects.

I am terrible at maths but do know my times tables and find I still use them. DS 40 could say his backwards and forwards by the end of grade four. His teacher gave each child a gold star when they could recite them to him, when they were ready. We then moved to England when DS was in grade five and it wasn't until the middle of the school year that DS's teacher said they were going to learn their times tables. I thought it was being left a bit late.

I imagine some of those children from DS's grade five class would have fared like my DD now 34. I tried to help her learn her times tables. I said them with her, bought her a cd with them being sung, we had a times table poster. DD was not willing to try to learn them and she didn't have DS's grade four teacher. She found it very difficult years later when studying nursing and not allowed to use a calculator.

I believe times tables are very important. They can be taught in a fun way. It's similar to GS 7 he recently changed schools. First school he had to learn twenty words a week for a spelling test. That was beyond him and he learnt none. At the new school he was given six words a week to learn, each week he got the six words correct. A bit of common sense in how things are taught makes a difference.

I have always been glad that I knew my tables, they've often been useful in checking shop receipts and so on. But knowing the trouble GS1 already has with the endless spelling tests my heart sinks at the thought of yet another test for a very clever boy to fail at.

I wonder why we English are so bad at languages? My DH and I both attended grammar school, are graduates and well qualified in our own fields but when we tried learning Spanish a few years ago we couldn't keep anything in our heads. Perhaps it's an age thing.

The times tables are not meant to turn us into mathematicians, by the way, although it might help.

That won't be happen Lillie. They have trouble recruiting French teachers so tend to leave the subject alone.

I was top of the class for knowing my tables by heart, (having a teacher for a mum), but way down the class as a mathematician. I found it difficult to apply that knowledge to anything more complicated than breaking down fractions, so it wasn't very useful to me anyway.
I do feel very strongly, however, about children learning "avoir" and "être" and all the irregular verbs by heart in foreign languages, and dare I say it, tests in this area wouldn't go amiss. But that's another story.

Like others, I still know my times tables and am frequently glad that I do. I remember teaching my son with the aid of a jig saw - only the correct answer fitted with the sum. I have to say he absolutely hated it. I must ask him if he still knows - or ever really learned - his times tables.

Knowing your tables by heart won't make you a mathematician but not knowing them will cause you some delays in your calculations. But Penstemmon is right, this announcement is a packaging job. We are testing more things that are easy to test without asking how useful it is to know the outcome.

And that Lilygran just about sums it all up.

Precise language is to be encouraged when trying to make a point or your meaning can be lost (as opposed to mislaid )

Knowing your tables by heart won't make you a mathematician but not knowing them will cause you some delays in your calculations. But Penstemmon is right, this announcement is a packaging job. We are testing more things that are easy to test without asking how useful it is to know the outcome.

"Chanting" "Repeating" "Recalling"- if you want to quibble about words these are all involved in rote learning. Dismissing one word does not mean the point is invalid.