How to help your child learn times tables

Before you start: when and where to begin

In England, children learn the 2, 5 and 10 times tables in Year 2, the 3, 4 and 8 in Year 3, and all the tables up to 12 × 12 by the end of Year 4, when they take the Multiplication Tables Check. Around age 8 to 9, most children move from working the answer out to remembering it.

One thing to clear up straight away, because it changes everything else: times tables are more memory than maths. The idea of multiplication is maths. But when an adult answers “fifty-six” to “seven times eight”, they’re not calculating: they’re finishing a phrase they know by heart. Neuroscience studies show that multiplication facts are recalled mainly through the brain’s language networks, a bit like the lines of a song. That’s why they need to be understood once, and then practised often.

The 3-step method

Step 1: understand what multiplying means (1 to 2 weeks)

Before memorising, your child needs to know what they’re memorising. School covers this, but for a refresher, things around the house are enough:

• Equal groups: 3 plates with 4 biscuits each. How many biscuits? 4 + 4 + 4 = 12, that is 3 × 4.
• Arrays: put the biscuits in 3 rows of 4. Then turn the plate: now it’s 4 rows of 3, and there are still 12 biscuits. That’s the commutative property, discovered instead of explained.
• Breaking apart: 3 × 4 is 3 × 1 plus 3 × 3. Use the plate of biscuits again. Then have a snack together!

If they can explain in their own words why 3 × 4 makes 12, you can move on to step 2.

Step 2: a few questions, every day (the heart of the method)

This is where everything that works comes together. Three ingredients, all backed by research:

1. Questions, not repetition. Ask a question and wait for your child to pull the answer out of memory. It works better than having them recite or reread the table a thousand times: in one study, children who practised with flashcards remembered more, both straight after and weeks later, than children who practised by chanting.
2. Little and often. 3 to 5 minutes every day beats half an hour on Sunday. A 2025 meta-analysis of classroom studies confirms that spreading practice out over time consistently works better. And the facts they already know should be reviewed at increasing intervals: after a day, then three, then a week, and so on.
3. Immediate correction. When they get one wrong, tell them the right answer straight away and have them repeat the whole fact: “six times eight, forty-eight”, not just “forty-eight”. In studies, immediate correction is what stops mistakes from sticking.

Some good news: the tool matters less than you might think. The SUM Project, from the universities of Loughborough and Nottingham, found that different kinds of recall-based practice helped children in similar ways. Flashcards, questions in the car or an app all work: what counts is that your child makes the effort to remember the answer, and does it consistently.

Two more practical rules. Ask questions in random order, mixing different tables: practising one table at a time gives a false sense of security. And if you can, have them answer out loud: it isn’t needed for learning, but it lets you hear the hesitation, which you can’t see on paper.

Step 3: speed and test format (only at the end)

When almost every answer comes within a couple of seconds, and only then, you can bring in time: a few questions against the clock, a practice test like the ones they’ll do in class. If the timer comes too early, it can block the very memory that’s forming: anxiety takes up the same working memory needed to remember, especially in children who are well prepared and care about getting it right. The SUM Project researchers saw this: children who were anxious about maths learned less when they practised against the clock, and without the timer the difference disappeared (data not yet fully published). The test format is a separate skill: practise it separately, as the date gets closer. In England that means the Multiplication Tables Check: 25 questions on screen, 6 seconds each. Typing speed can matter too, so a few practice rounds in that format in the last weeks are worth it.

One last word of caution: knowing 5 × 7 instantly doesn’t mean knowing how to use it. The same research shows that many children who remember their times tables well still struggle to see when to use them to solve a problem. Memorising frees the mind to reason, but it doesn’t replace reasoning. Every now and then, ask your child to make up a word problem with the table they’re learning.

A typical 5-minute session

It’s the method I also described in Teach Primary magazine. All you need is a set of flashcards (you can make them from pieces of card), with the fact on one side and the answer on the other.

The first time, make three piles. Show the cards one at a time and sort them by how your child answers:

• Automatic: right, and immediate.
• Slow: right, but after a pause or by counting.
• Wrong or mixed up.

Then, every day, for 5 minutes:

• Work on the slow and wrong cards, mixed with a few automatic ones, so the session feels good. A session made only of hard cards is frustrating, and tomorrow they won’t want to practise.
• After each mistake: turn the card over, have them say the whole fact out loud and move on.
• When a card becomes automatic, it moves to the automatic pile. Those come back at longer and longer intervals, so they don’t get forgotten.
• If mistakes pile up, stop: carrying on only strengthens the memory of the wrong answers.
• If attention drops, stop: the cards you didn’t get to today open tomorrow’s session.

Better five minutes that end with a smile than fifteen that end in tears. Consistency counts more than length.

How to tell if they really know them

Speed matters too, not just whether the answer is right. Ask questions in random order and listen: if the answer comes straight away, the fact is memorised; if it takes more than 2 to 3 seconds, your child is still working it out. That’s not a problem, it’s information: it tells you exactly which cards go in the slow pile.

Watch out for two illusions. Being able to recite the 7 times table from start to finish doesn’t mean answering 7 × 8 out of the blue: they’re two different skills. And a child who did an hour of times tables the night before feels more confident than they should: feeling sure isn’t the same as knowing.

The most common mistakes (and what to do instead)

If your child freezes, gets bored or mixes tables up

They mix up 6 × 8 and 7 × 8

It’s normal and predictable. Times tables aren’t stored in memory as a tidy list, but as a network: faced with 7 × 8, the brain also lights up 6 × 8, 7 × 7, 8 × 8 and 9 × 6, and the child has to rule out the nearby answers. It’s called interference, and it varies from child to child. Find the pairs your child mixes up and practise them side by side, always correcting with the whole fact.

They freeze when you ask out of the blue

It’s often anxiety, not a gap in knowledge: the fear of getting it wrong takes up the memory needed to remember. Take the pressure off: no timer, no “come on, you know this one”. If they panic in timed tests but do fine at home, rebuild their confidence first and then bring time back a little at a time.

They say “enough, I know them all”

It means the sessions are too long, too easy or too hard. Make them shorter, mix new cards with cards they know, and show them their progress: a growing pile of automatic cards motivates more than any reward.

They forget them over the summer

It happens to almost everyone: without review, memories fade. Preventing it takes very little: a few minutes at increasing intervals during the summer holidays keeps months of work.

Songs, games, Montessori: do they help?

Songs, rhymes, board games, Montessori materials and the various finger tricks have a real role: they make the topic enjoyable, help with understanding (step 1) and give a hook for the hardest facts. Go ahead and use them.

The limit is that on their own they rarely lead to an instant answer to a question out of the blue, which is what’s needed in class and in tests. A child can sing the whole 7 times table and still take five seconds for 7 × 8, because they have to start the song again from the beginning. To judge any method, one question is enough: does it make your child pull the answer out on their own, often and in random order? If yes, it works. If not, it’s an extra.

How to choose a times tables app

An app can do step 2 well, because it keeps track of what your child knows and doesn’t know better than a pile of flashcards. But they’re not all the same. Before choosing one, check these six points:

1. It asks them to remember, not to choose. Picking the right answer out of four is easier than pulling it out from scratch, and it trains less.
2. It measures response time, not just right or wrong. A right answer after five seconds isn’t a memorised fact.
3. It brings mistakes back and reviews what’s already learned at longer and longer intervals.
4. It mixes the tables instead of doing them one at a time or in order.
5. Short sessions, no distractions: a few minutes, no ads, no rewards that pull attention away from the real work.
6. It respects a child’s privacy: no required accounts, no data collected without a reason.

Full disclosure: I built TabTabTab, so I’m not impartial. I made it for my son, following exactly these criteria. Your child sees the fact and answers out loud; the app hears not just whether the answer is right but how long it takes, so it tells automatic facts apart from ones still being worked out, brings mistakes back and reviews what they know at longer and longer intervals. Twenty questions at most, under 3 minutes a day. Speech recognition runs on the device, even offline, with no account and no ads. It’s for iPhone and iPad, and the first 10 sessions are free. In 2026 it was shortlisted for the Teach Primary Awards, the UK awards for primary school teaching resources. If you’d rather use flashcards, the method above works just as well without it.

Frequently asked questions