11 Plus Exams Forum

My 9 year old can't learn his tables!
We practice everyday at home and at school and they just won't go in.
Any ideas?

Sing them?
You can certainly find CDs and tapes with tables on. Maybe you already have them...you need to find different ways to engage different areas of the brain. What is your child's learning style? Maybe kinaesthetic which would require a person to be physically doing something to aid learning.
Google learning styles and see if you can decide which method of learning would be the most beneficial.

singing them certainly worked with my class (lowest set ) we also added an action for each one one eg touch nose for 2 times, chin for 3 times etc.


try this too

http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/g ... eteor.html

there are a lot of games similarto this on the internet. They make learning tables fun.

also you can buy books which have colouring by numbers for all teh multiplication tables, di it correctly and a picture emerges.. I think they are from Tarquin..

Hello there

My daughter has over the last three months become very good a times tables and it is because of the way the school(her new primary school) has her practising.

Each week she comes home with a small piece of paper laid out with tables to learn in a graph type format, looks a bit like this but with all the lines in,

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

She then has to fill it in and time herself doing it which she finds great fun and she loves competing against her last time. I gave her a stop watch which helps. She then gets tested at school.

This has made such a difference she is as quick as my 12 year old with most of them(she's 9) and even gives her dad a run for his money.

My son never did anything like this and trying to get him to listen to CD's. I see can really see the difference it's made for my DD and her matsh in general.

Give it a go. You could even do one along side your son like it's a race he will proabbly enjoy competing against you.


Mel x

An extension to this is to 'mix up' the numbers in the rows and/or columns e.g

2 5 8 11 7 10 4 9 3 6 12

2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

then mix up both!!

Try this site for a couple of songs and lyrics. http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/maths/ma ... parker.htm , much livelier than some rather dull tapes I bought from a popular shop (probably shouldn't say which.)

also useful to learn "division" tables and square number tables..

If you follow the link for "meteor multiplication" there is also a division demolition game, fast and furious. It had me in knots!

Yes Guestt55 I should of said that is what my daughters school do, mix them up.

I think this is why she is learning them so well. I have just started tutoring her for the 11+ and I notice she is really good with the number questions and I think that this is also because she is used to looking at lots of numbers together so doesn't feel daunted when she sees them laid out in the questions, if that makes sense. Knowing her TT's so well is also proving great when doing the number ones where you have to find out the operations used.

Can already see myself what a difference learning the TT's will make when she does the test.

Mel

Dear All

All my tutored children have to complete a 10 x 10 [mixed up and inc 11 and 12] each week. They start the grid while I am marking their tests, in the beginning I always beat them, they have to finish off as part of their homework.

I give them the incentive that the day they can beat me there is a one off offer of a bar of chocolate, of their choice. I can guarantee that towards the end of their time with me, they are consisitently beating me.

Practice makes Perfect.

Patricia

I have encouraged my pupils with Timez Attack a cutdown version is available for free and covers all tables, the game involves firing the correct answers at trolls and plays like an adventure game, I am currently using worldmathsday.com as well.