Memory & Retention

Should my child learn one times table at a time?

Learning one table at a time seems logical: learn it well, in order, then move on. That's how most workbooks and apps are organised, and how many parents remember learning. Research tells a different story.

What the research says

The idea of learning one table at a time is understandable, but research says otherwise. Research on mixed practice points that way, though most of it comes from older pupils. In a randomised trial with Year 8 pupils learning maths (not times tables), those who practised with mixed problems scored 61% on a test a month later, against 38% for those who practised one type of problem at a time (Rohrer et al., 2020). During practice, the one-type-at-a-time approach often looks better; the difference shows up later.

The reason is well known: practising one table at a time lets children follow the sequence instead of remembering each fact. 7×1, 7×2, 7×3 can be worked through by counting, and the memory of each single fact is never really tested. Mixed questions force your child to truly remember every answer.

On top of that, research on interference shows that introducing similar facts in the same week (like 6×7 and 7×7) makes them harder to learn, because they compete in memory (Dotan & Zviran-Ginat, 2022).

For times tables specifically, the evidence is thinner: a 2025 study, still a preprint, found no advantage in practising in random order over practising one table at a time. So the safest approach is a middle path: introduce tables one at a time, then practise them mixed with the ones already learned.

What this means in practice

The MTC itself is mixed: 25 questions from all the tables, in no predictable order. Preparing one table at a time means practising differently from how the test will be.

Try this

Introduce new tables one at a time, but always practise them together with the ones already learned.
If your child does well reviewing a single table but struggles with random questions, those facts aren’t truly memorised yet.
Expect mixed practice to feel harder to your child. That difficulty is the learning.

→ TabTabTab mixes facts in every session, the way the MTC presents them, choosing the ones that best fit your child's learning path.

Sources

Agarwal & Agostinelli (AFT) — expert commentary
Rohrer et al. (2020) — peer-reviewed study
Dotan & Zviran-Ginat (2022) — peer-reviewed study
Boutros, Müller, Prado & Thevenot (2025) — preprint

Last reviewed: 2026-10-17