TabTabTab
Can an app replace traditional times tables practice?
Apps and digital tools for times tables are often dismissed as games, less serious than worksheets or practising out loud. A growing body of research suggests the format matters much less than the principles behind it.
What the research says
A UK study of game-based training with 7 to 8 year olds measured a moderate effect (d ≈ 0.6) from short daily sessions with spaced repetition and immediate correction. Effects of this size are common in well-designed training programs. What matters isn’t the exact number, but that the benefit comes from the mechanisms (recalling, spacing over time, correcting right away), not from session length.
It’s worth noting that studies like this usually use longer sessions than TabTabTab’s three minutes: this one used 20-minute daily sessions. The evidence supports the mechanisms; TabTabTab’s short sessions are a deliberate choice to make daily practice easy, which research on spacing supports independently.
What this means in practice
Short, well-structured digital sessions aren’t a second-best option compared with “real” practice: they can work better, as long as they use the mechanisms research points to, that is recalling, spacing over time, mixing questions and correcting right away. The format matters less than whether these principles are there.
Try this
- Judge an app or digital tool by how it works, not by how fun it looks.
- 5 minutes spent recalling is worth more than 20 minutes spent re-reading or filling in worksheets.
- If an app shows your child the answer before asking for it, it isn’t training recall: it’s just showing the answer. That matters.
TabTabTab trains recall, not understanding. Building the concept of multiplication is classroom work, and it comes first.
Sources
- Jay et al. (2019) — peer-reviewed study
Last reviewed: 2026-08-01