✖️ How Children Really Learn Times Tables
Updated 18 July 2026 · For parents & teachers
Times tables are the piece of primary maths that parents remember drilling — and the piece children still need cold, instant recall of today. The national curriculum expects children to know all tables up to 12 × 12 by the end of Year 4, when the Multiplication Tables Check takes place. Here's how to get there without nightly battles.
Learn them in the right order
Tables aren't equally hard, and the easy ones unlock the hard ones. A sensible sequence:
- 2, 5 and 10 — the Year 2 tables: clear patterns, quick wins.
- 3, 4 and 8 — Year 3: note that 4 is double 2, and 8 is double 4.
- 6, 7, 9, 11 and 12 — Year 4: the toughest, but by now most facts are already known from the other direction (6 × 4 was learned as 4 × 6).
💡 The secret that shrinks the mountain: once a child knows a × b = b × a, there are far fewer facts to learn than the "144 facts" reputation suggests. Cross off what they already know and the remaining list is usually encouragingly short — often just a handful of stubborn facts like 7 × 8 and 6 × 9.
Tricks that genuinely help
- Nines on your fingers: hold down the finger you're multiplying by — the fingers either side show the answer (for 9 × 4, hold down finger 4: three fingers left, six right — 36).
- Elevens: up to 9, just repeat the digit (11 × 6 = 66).
- Doubling chains: ×4 is double-double; ×8 is double-double-double.
- The famous rhyme: "5, 6, 7, 8 — 56 is 7 times 8." The hardest fact in the tables, solved by counting.
- Square numbers as anchors: 6 × 6, 7 × 7, 8 × 8 learned as a chant give a nearby anchor for the neighbouring facts (7 × 8 is one more seven than 7 × 7).
Make practice feel like play
- Beat the clock: ten questions, count the seconds, then try to beat yesterday's time. Children love racing themselves.
- Tables tennis: you say "7 × 6", they answer and serve one back. Play in the car, in queues, over dinner.
- Dice wars: roll two dice (or two dice plus 6 for the big tables), first to multiply them wins the point.
- Snap the fact family: say "56" and they answer "7 × 8" — reversing the direction builds division facts too.
- Online practice in the MTC format: our free practice check and maths games turn recall drills into games with no sign-up and no cost.
When it's not sticking
If one table refuses to stick, narrow the target: most children don't struggle with the 7s, they struggle with three or four specific facts. Write those on sticky notes on the fridge, practise only those for a week, and watch the whole table suddenly "click". And if maths practice regularly ends in tears, shorten the sessions rather than abandoning them — two happy minutes a day still compounds into mastery over a school year.