Year 3 - Learning Times Tables

Jo.G

So glad I read this thread!
My DS (10) is in Y5 and has been learning tables on and off for the last 3/4 years. When he is learning them he is fine, and knows them off by heart. Skip forward a few months and if he hasnt been doing them daily or weekly at school he has forgotten them, especially 6,7 & 8's! He knows the 9's with the finger trick.
Whilst going through some old toy boxes this week we have found the Carol Vordeman set we bought years ago so I think its time to start with the dreaded CD again! And he's another one who loves Lego so will spend some time looking at the bricks and using them. The footsteps on the stairs is another great idea and hopefully my 6yr old DS will pick it up too.

mrcow

Just popped on here to have a look at when it was that I said I was bribing him.

It was 13 days ago.

Well - he knows his tables. All of them. And has done for over a week now so it didn't even take that long. I can't believe that I'm even saying that after everything! He's not superquick on them (has a little think about some of the harder ones) but he's getting the right answers - which just wasn't happening a month ago.

I really took the advice on here on board and tried several approaches.

The main think that worked though was telling him he could have the NXT book (which was actually more coincidental than anything else as I'd bought it to help him with his mental maths, not as a carrot in itself!).

So what I think worked was:

1. The incentive. "What's in it for me" - once we'd established that, it wasn't just me who was keen to have them learned.
2. The tables CD - once he was (truely) on board with it, the repetitive nature of the songs etc helped.
3. Him understanding that he only had to learn a small few of them to actually get them (ie. once he already knew his 2,3,4,5,6,10,11 & 12s then the 7s 8s and 9s were nowhere near as hard as he thought. Overcoming the mental barrier of learning 12 sums for each table was really motivational for him.
4. The cards on the steps idea was a great idea. Although rather than cutting them up, he made posters for his room (writing each table out 4 times). This helped him visualise the table. Looking at them regularly just in his bedroom setting helped no end.

I've been "spot testing" him for a week now and he's getting them pretty much bang on. As with most things, I think it was just a case of persevering, using different techniques and being consistently postive about it.

On the flip side of all this - I now have a four year old who through osmosis (in that the smaller tables are going in) is now skipping around singing her 2 x and 5x tables to anyone who will listen - so maybe the whole thing won't be as painful second time around with her in a few years.......


Thanks everyone - I know it's an ongoing thing and we'll keep at it. But we have had a real break through and I'm really please for my son (who's really proud of himself too).