Are timed tests bad for children?

Few questions in primary education have generated more debate than whether timed tests help or harm children's learning. The honest answer is: it depends — and the research identifies clearly on which children it depends.

What the research says

The evidence is more nuanced than either side of this debate typically acknowledges. Timed practice can improve fluency — and some degree of speed pressure is built into the MTC itself. But Ashcraft and Krause’s foundational research established that maths anxiety produces a specific and measurable impairment to working memory during retrieval, and that this impairment is activated by time pressure even in children who know the material.

The Hechinger Report’s 2023 synthesis of this debate is the most balanced available summary: the evidence for harm from timed tests is strongest for children who already show anxiety, and weakest for children who are confident and well-prepared. The same intervention has different effects depending on the child.

What this means in practice

Timed tests are not universally harmful, but they are harmful for some children — specifically those with maths anxiety, who are also the children most likely to be struggling with times tables. Building fluency before introducing speed pressure is a more effective sequence than using pressure to build fluency.

Try this

• Introduce informal timing only after your child can answer most questions quickly and confidently in untimed conditions.
• Frame speed as a measure of how well something is learned, not as a performance standard. “Fast means you really know it” is different from “be fast.”
• If your child shows distress around timed tests, raise it with the class teacher — accommodations exist.

Last reviewed: 2026-08-01