Numbers & Math
Times tables that stick: the order to learn them in
Published · 9 minute read
Times tables are easier than the 144-box grid suggests. Learned in a sensible order, the 4s and 8s follow from the 2s, and half the grid never needs learning twice. A practical guide to sequencing, daily practice, and testing without the dread.
Your child can chant the two times table but stalls on 7 x 6. You have twenty minutes in the evening, most of which is spent on the argument about starting. The problem is often not effort. It is that the tables are being learned in a random order, all twelve at once, with a test at the end of the week that feels like a judgement. Learned in a sensible order, the whole set is smaller than it looks: because 3 x 8 and 8 x 3 give the same answer, roughly half the grid never needs learning twice.
The order that works, and why
Schools in England usually introduce the 2s, 5s and 10s in Year 2, add the 3s, 4s and 8s in Year 3, and cover the rest by the end of Year 4, when the multiplication check happens. The sequence is deliberate rather than arbitrary: each block leans on the one before it, so a child who is secure in the earlier tables has less to memorise later.
A practical order to follow at home is: 10s, then 2s, then 5s, then 4s, then 8s, then 3s, then 6s, then 9s, then 7s, then 11s and 12s. Squares (3 x 3, 4 x 4, 7 x 7) can be picked up alongside. Teachers often use them as landmarks in the grid, and many children find them easier to hold on to than the facts either side of them.
Leave the 7s until late. They have the fewest obvious shortcuts and patterns, so they are the hardest to reason your way into. By the time you get there, most of the 7s have already been met from the other side: 7 x 3 was learned as 3 x 7, 7 x 4 as 4 x 7. What is left is a short list rather than a whole table.
Why the 4s and 8s come free once the 2s are solid
Doubling is the engine. Four is two doubled, and eight is four doubled. So 4 x 6 is 6 doubled (12) and doubled again (24). And 8 x 6 is that answer doubled once more (48). A child who can double confidently up to 50 has a route into two whole tables without learning them as separate lists.
Say it out loud in that shape the first few times. Try: six twos are twelve, so six fours are double twelve, twenty-four, so six eights are double twenty-four, forty-eight. Write the three lines under each other on paper so the child sees the ladder rather than three unrelated facts. Then cover the middle line and ask for the bottom one, so the jump has to be made rather than read.
The same trick covers other gaps. The 6s are the 3s doubled. The 9s are the 10s minus one lot (9 x 7 is 70 minus 7). The 12s are the 10s plus the 2s (12 x 7 is 70 plus 14). None of this replaces knowing the fact outright, and a child who has to work it out every time will still be slow. But it gives them somewhere to go when the answer does not arrive, which can be the difference between pausing and giving up.
The grid is smaller than it looks
A twelve by twelve grid has 144 boxes, which is why it looks so daunting pinned to the wall. Far less of it needs separate learning than that number suggests. Once you know that 3 x 8 and 8 x 3 give the same answer, half the grid folds away. The 10s, the 1s, the 2s, the 5s and the 11s up to 9 x 11 follow patterns that are usually quick to spot. What remains is a small awkward core.
| Block | Roughly when | What makes it easier |
|---|---|---|
| 10s, 2s, 5s | Ages 6 to 7 | Counting patterns; ends in 0, 5, or an even digit |
| 4s and 8s | Ages 7 to 8 | Double the 2s, then double again |
| 3s and 6s | Ages 7 to 8 | 6s are the 3s doubled |
| 9s | Ages 8 to 9 | Ten lots minus one lot; digits add to 9 up to 9 x 10 |
| 11s and 12s | Ages 8 to 9 | 11s repeat the digit to 9 x 11; 12s are 10s plus 2s |
| 7s | Ages 8 to 9 | Most are already known in reverse from earlier tables |
The genuinely awkward core, once everything else is in place, is about ten facts: 6 x 7, 6 x 8, 6 x 9, 7 x 8, 7 x 9, 8 x 9, and the squares 6 x 6, 7 x 7, 8 x 8, 9 x 9. If a child is stuck and morale is low, put a line through everything else on the grid and work only on those. Ten facts feels survivable in a way that 144 does not, and the crossing-out is worth doing where the child can see it.
How much daily practice is actually enough
Most teachers would rather see five to ten minutes a day, most days, than forty minutes in one go on a Sunday. Short goes are easier to protect in a busy week, and a child who is tired at the end of a long session is unlikely to be getting much from the last stretch of it. Set a timer for the length you agreed and stop when it goes, even mid-page. Stopping on time is part of what makes tomorrow easier to start.
Practise one table at a time until it is quick, then mix it with the tables already known. Mixing matters. A child who can rattle through the 4s in order but stalls on a single 4 x 7 has learned a song rather than a set of facts. Once a table is secure in order, ask the questions out of order, and ask the division too: if 4 x 7 is 28, what is 28 divided by 7. Asking it as a division from the start saves teaching it again later.
A rough rule for when to move on: the child answers the table out of order, with no counting on fingers, in about three seconds a fact, on two separate days. One good day can be luck; two in a row is a better sign. If the second day falls apart, stay put for another week rather than pressing forward on a shaky base, because the 8s are hard to build on unsteady 2s.
- Pick one table. Write out the ten or twelve facts together on paper, slowly, saying each one aloud.
- Circle the three the child already knows. Point out that the list just got shorter.
- Practise the remaining facts for five minutes, out of order, no timer.
- The next day, start with the three known facts to open on a success, then the rest.
- On day three, mix in a table learned earlier so the child has to choose, not recite.
- On day four, ask the same facts as divisions, so the pair is learned together.
- When it is quick out of order on two separate days, mark it done and start the next one.
Testing without the dread
For a lot of children the uncomfortable part is not the numbers but the setting: being timed in front of other people while a figure counts down. You cannot always change what happens at school, but at home you can make practice feel unlike a test. The recall you are building is the same recall the school check asks for, whether or not the practice looks like one.
Ask the child to correct your answers instead of producing their own. Say seven eights are fifty-four and let them catch you. Being the checker rather than the checked changes the feel of the exercise, and a child who spots the error has retrieved the fact to do it. This works well on the awkward core, where the pressure is highest. Get one wrong on purpose roughly every fourth question, so they have to check rather than assume.
When an answer does not come, wait about three seconds, then give the fact plainly and move on. Do not leave the child hanging, and try not to say think harder, which rarely produces the answer and usually adds pressure. Come back to that fact two questions later and again at the end. Being given the answer and getting it right shortly afterwards is a normal part of practice, not a failure.
Count the facts known, not the marks lost. It is the same information, and it is easier to come back to.
Track progress by facts known rather than by score out of ten. A grid where the child colours in each fact as it becomes automatic shows what has accumulated instead of what is missing. Nine wrong out of twelve reads as failure; forty-one facts coloured in reads as progress, and it is the same week of work. Ask what they got right before you ask what they missed.
When it is not going in
If a particular table refuses to stick after two or three weeks, a common cause is that the ground underneath is soft. Check that the child can double numbers to 50 quickly, count in the base table confidently, and explain what 4 x 6 actually means, four groups of six. If any of those is shaky, go back to it for a few days. A table is hard to build on top of a gap.
Some children get further when the fact is attached to something other than a number line: six eggs in a box, four wheels on a car, seven days in a week. Ask how many wheels on nine cars rather than what is 9 x 4. The same fact reached through a different door can land better, and it gives the child a picture to fall back on when they are put on the spot.
Watch for practice becoming the worst part of the day. If the sight of the sheet produces tears, stop the sheets for a fortnight and do it out loud instead, in the car or while laying the table, two or three questions at a time. Nothing much is lost by pausing the written work for a couple of weeks, and how a child feels about maths is worth protecting alongside the facts.
If you would rather work from paper than from the back of an envelope, the numbers and maths section has printable PDF packs in A4 and US Letter, mostly black and white. You print only the page you need, which means putting one sheet in front of a child rather than handing over a whole book.