Reciting your tables along with your child can be lots of fun and doesn’t have to be restricted to sitting at a desk. Why not have a go at reciting together as you run up the garden, do star jumps, walk to school, or wait for dance class. Chanting along to a multiplication CD in the car can also be a giggle. Asking your child to use their tables in everyday life makes them meaningful e.g. ‘How long till half term,’ they ask? ‘You have 4 weeks of 7 days left so you need to work out 7 x 4’ you answer, and this way their times table are naturally useful. Using a number grid (a 10 by 10 grid with the numbers 1 to 100 on it) can help your child see patterns in their times tables. If they are learning the 7x table, get them to count in 7s and colour each number square as they progress on the grid. This will help them get familiar with this particular times table before they begin to learn it. For the 9 times table the two numbers in the answer always equal nine i.e. 18 (1+8=9), 27 (2+7=9), 36 (3+6=9.) When you move on to the 3’s it can take a little more practice, so if you just go up to 5 x 3 initially this may prove less overwhelming.

Praising effort and engagement will go a long way. Impatience and irritability from you or your child is never going to be conducive to learning and that’s definitely the time to give it a rest for a while. Your children may recite their tables in a different way to how you learned yours. I would advise to go with the method used for reciting at their school to encourage consistency for your child and to keep it simple.

Secondary