Make it stick
Understanding a multiplication fact and being able to work it out are important. But there is one more step: making the answer familiar enough that it comes back quickly.
The aim is not to stop thinking. The aim is to practise useful thinking until the facts you use most often become automatic.
Three different kinds of answer
Suppose you see:
7 × 8 = ?
You immediately think 56.
Perhaps you think 5 × 8 + 2 × 8 and reach 56.
You do not know the answer and do not yet see a reliable route.
These are not the same. “I can work it out” is progress. With practice, that fact may eventually move into the “I know it” group.
1. Try to retrieve the answer
When practising, look at the question and first give your memory a chance to produce the answer.
If the answer comes immediately, excellent.
If it does not, use one of the methods from the previous lessons:
- split the fact into easier parts
- complete to 10 and subtract
- double
- use another nearby fact you already know
2. Do not practise every fact equally
Once you know a fact easily, there is little value in answering it again and again while other facts still cause trouble.
Spend more practice time on the facts that are still slow, uncertain, or regularly forgotten.
3. Come back to facts later
Getting a fact right once does not mean it is permanently learnt.
Practise it again after some other questions. Then again later. As it becomes easier to remember, the gaps between practices can become longer.
What should I do after a wrong answer?
Do not simply stare at the correct answer and move on.
Instead:
- find a way to reconstruct the answer
- say or think through the connection
- try the fact again after a few other questions
For example, if you forget 7 × 8, you might remind yourself that 5 × 8 + 2 × 8 = 40 + 16 = 56. Then give 7 × 8 another chance later.
Should practice be timed?
It does not need to be.
At first, the important question is whether you can find the answer reliably.
As facts become familiar, answers will naturally become faster. Speed is useful, but it should be the result of fluency rather than pressure to guess quickly.
A useful practice cycle
Practise your times tables
The practice tool follows the same ideas from this lesson. It concentrates on facts that still need work and gradually asks familiar facts less often.
If you cannot remember a fact, choose Help me work it out. That is not treated as a wrong answer — it is a chance to reconstruct the fact using the strategies you have learnt.
Open Times Tables Practice →Your progress is saved on this device, so you can come back another day.
Putting the course together
- Understand it: multiplication is a faster way of counting equal groups.
- Shrink the problem: many facts can be built from easier ones.
- Work it out: if you forget a fact, reconstruct it rather than guessing.
- Make it stick: retrieve the facts repeatedly until useful ones become automatic.
You do not need to choose between understanding and memorising. Understanding gives the facts structure. Practice makes the useful facts quick to retrieve.