Find the difficulty before choosing the practice.
A learner who does not understand multiplication needs something different from one who understands it but cannot retrieve facts quickly. The first job is to notice what is actually happening.
What are you seeing?
Check the meaning of multiplication. Every fact seems separate.
Build connections between facts. A forgotten fact causes guessing or panic.
Teach a reliable route out. They understand, but recall is slow.
Use short retrieval practice. Multiplication is fine, but division feels separate.
Reverse the fact families. They know tables but do not use them flexibly.
Move into larger calculations.
“What are you doing in your head?”
The method often tells you more than the answer.
If they do not yet see equal groups
What it may look like: they count every object from 1, cannot explain what 4 × 6 means, or treat the × sign as a mysterious instruction.
Use counters, Lego, buttons or arrays. Build equal groups and let them count.
“How many groups?” “How many in each?” “Can we count in equal jumps?”
Starting with flashcards or demanding recall before the operation has meaning.
If every fact feels like a separate thing to memorise
What it may look like: they know 4 × 7 but do not use it to help with 8 × 7, or know 6 × 4 but do not recognise 4 × 6.
“Can you turn it around?” · “What easier fact is nearby?” · “Could you double something you know?”
For progress, it is important that a learner develops several representations of the same idea and can move between them confidently.
“Double” can mean make two of the same thing — for example, turning one dough ball into two equal dough balls — or it can mean add the same amount again: 5 + 5. These give the same result, but they are different ways of thinking.
The aim is not to force one interpretation. It is for the child to recognise that the representations are connected and choose whichever is most useful.
The ×2 table is one of the most important to master. It supports ×4, ×6 and ×8 through repeated doubling and splitting. In reverse, halving also gives a powerful route into ×5: multiplying by 5 can be seen as multiplying by 10 and then halving.
The finger trick can look more complicated than a simple written shortcut, but that is not necessarily a disadvantage.
For some children it is fun precisely because it feels a little like magic and a little like fidgeting. That can take attention away from the feeling that they are “doing times tables” and make practice feel more like a puzzle.
It also reinforces the wider goal of this course: give the learner several valid representations and let them discover which one is most useful to them.
Avoid: presenting the whole multiplication grid as 144 unrelated facts.
Open the learner page ↗If forgetting one fact makes everything stop
This is where a reconstruction strategy matters most. A child who can recover 7 × 8 from a known fact is not failing to know the fact – they are building a bridge towards fluency.
“You don’t have to guess. What easier fact could help?”
Scroll to the strategy they are using
Use these as prompts, not scripts. Give the smallest hint that gets the learner moving again, then let them finish the route.
If they know 6 × 4 but freeze at 4 × 6, ask them to rotate the array or simply ask, “Can you turn it around?”
Give less help: pause after “What fact do you already know that looks almost the same?”
Open learner strategy ↗For 4s, return to 2s and double again. For 6s, use 3s and double. Keep the intermediate fact visible if working memory is getting overloaded.
Prompt: “What would half as many groups be?”
Open learner strategy ↗Use this only if repeated doubling feels natural. It is a useful route to 8s and 12s, but not a compulsory method.
Stop if: the learner is juggling too many intermediate numbers. Switch to another representation instead.
Open learner strategy ↗For 6s, 7s and 8s, make five groups first, then add the small extra part. Keep the split visible: 7 × 8 = 5 × 8 + 2 × 8.
Prompt: “What is the five-times part? What is left?”
Open learner strategy ↗Offer more than one route: 10 groups minus one group, the finger method, or a familiar pattern. The useful method is the one the learner can reproduce independently.
Avoid: insisting that the finger method is either essential or forbidden.
Open learner strategy ↗Build the easy ten-times fact, then subtract the missing groups. Make the subtraction concrete before asking the learner to hold it mentally.
Prompt: “If we had ten groups, what would we have? How many groups are too many?”
Open learner strategy ↗Use patterns when they help, but keep returning to structure. Twelve can be 10 + 2, 6 doubled, or 3 × 4 depending on the fact.
Ask: “Which route gives you numbers you already know?”
Open learner strategy ↗This is a summary and choice exercise rather than a new method. For a question a × b, first try the routes you know for a. If none feels convenient, turn it around to b × a and try the routes for b.
| If one factor is… | Routes to try | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Double | 2 × 7 = double 7 |
| 3 | Triple, or use a known 3s fact | 3 × 8 |
| 4 | Double, then double again | 4 × 7 = double 7, then double again |
| 5 | Use the 5-times-table fact | 5 × 8 |
| 6 | 5 + 1, or 3 then double | 6 × 8 = 5 × 8 + 1 × 8 |
| 7 | 5 + 2, or 10 − 3 | 7 × 8 = 5 × 8 + 2 × 8 |
| 8 | 10 − 2, or 4 then double | 8 × 7 = 10 × 7 − 2 × 7 |
| 9 | 10 − 1; the 9s pattern can help with recall | 9 × 7 = 10 × 7 − 1 × 7 |
| 10 | Use ×10 directly | 10 × 7 = 70 |
| 11 | 10 + 1 | 11 × 7 = 10 × 7 + 1 × 7 |
| 12 | 10 + 2, 6 then double, or 4 then triple | 12 × 8 = 10 × 8 + 2 × 8 |
Go back to the beginning of the strategy course and spend longer practising each method separately. Often the difficulty is not that one particular route is unclear, but that the learner is being asked to choose between too many routes before the individual methods feel secure.
It is absolutely fine to have preferred routes. A learner may rarely choose some of the others. The aim is not to force every method into every calculation.
It is still useful to understand the full set of routes. Comparing and switching between them practises flexible number sense and gives the learner more options for efficient mental arithmetic later on.
Goal: secure methods first, then flexible choice — not conformity.
Open learner strategy ↗The Trainer is for learning routes before recall. Let the learner write, use the scaffold and repeat a method. The disappearing support is deliberate.
Watch for: whether they can choose a route, not how quickly they type the final answer.
Open Method Trainer ↗Avoid: immediately giving the answer. If you always supply it, the learner never practises the route back.
Open the learner strategies ↗If they can work it out but recall is slow
This is the point where structured practice is useful. Do not confuse “I can work it out” with failure. It is the bridge between understanding and automatic recall.
Answer returned easily.
Used a reliable strategy.
No secure route yet.
Five or ten minutes is enough for many learners. We recommend a maximum of 15 minutes at a time. Fatigue increases guessing and frustration and can undo the quality of the practice.
Avoid: extending the session because they are struggling. That usually makes the session worse, not more productive.
Open the learner Recall page ↗ Open Times Tables Recall ↗If division feels like a completely different subject
Use fact families. If 7 × 8 = 56, then 56 ÷ 7 = 8 and 56 ÷ 8 = 7.
Ask: “If I know the multiplication, can I turn it around?”
Avoid: teaching division facts as another completely separate table to memorise.
Open the learner Division page ↗If they know tables but do not use them flexibly
Move into larger calculations before every fact is perfect. Ask for a useful route rather than a particular method.
“How would you make 18 × 12 easier?” rather than “Use this method.”
Avoid: waiting for flawless recall before letting the learner use multiplication in richer problems.
When the learner later practises methods such as block multiplication and block division, they repeatedly reuse the same multiplication and division facts. That continued use helps strengthen and consolidate the times tables even though the main lesson is now a broader arithmetic method.
We will link to those multiplication and division lessons here when they are available.
Sometimes the body helps the maths stick.
Not every learner concentrates best while sitting still with a worksheet. Movement, rhythm, drawing or handling objects can sometimes make a fact easier to hold onto.
Use beads, an abacus, counters or blocks to build and rearrange equal groups.
Sketch rectangles on squared paper so the multiplication becomes an array you can see.
Throw and catch a ball while answering, walk while reciting a sequence, or tap a rhythm.
If a fidget helps the learner focus during oral recall, it does not need to be removed.
Change the mode before assuming the learner needs more discipline or more repetitions. If one route is creating friction, try another route into the same mathematics.
Sometimes the difficulty is not only mathematical.
If a learner freezes, avoids answering, becomes upset by mistakes, or repeatedly says they are “bad at maths”, increasing the pressure usually makes retrieval harder.
Do not try to push through many new facts at once. Give a small set of facts time to become familiar, then pause. Come back later. Let the learner repeat the same route, take breaks, and allow the facts to settle before adding more.
It is usually safer to dwell a little too long than to move on too quickly. Spending extra time on secure understanding may feel slow, but repeatedly moving forward on shaky foundations can make every later stage feel harder.
A learner with strong, flexible knowledge of the 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 times tables already has many of the building blocks needed for the higher numbers. They can turn facts around, double, start from 5, start from 10, and combine facts they already trust.
By contrast, if those foundations are still shaky, adding more and more facts can leave the learner feeling that there is an impossible amount to remember. That repeated experience of being unable to keep up can damage confidence and make giving up more likely.
Depth first, then speed. Secure a small number of useful facts and strategies, then use them to expand.
- Give thinking time before repeating the question.
- Teach only a manageable number of new facts at once.
- Allow breaks and return to the same facts over several sessions.
- Accept a reconstruction strategy as success.
- Do not use speed as the main measure of progress.
- Stop practice while the learner is still thinking clearly.
- Separate mistakes from identity: the question is what strategy is missing, not whether the learner is “good at maths”.
Useful language: “Let’s find a way to work it out” is often better than “You should know this one.”
Slow progress is the plan
Do not feel that a child has to finish a lesson, a stage, or the whole route in one sitting. For many learners, especially those who already feel anxious or overwhelmed by times tables, a short section that ends successfully is more useful than pushing on until they are tired.
Stopping and coming back is part of the design. It is also completely reasonable to repeat the same lesson several times. Familiarity reduces cognitive load, gives the learner another chance to notice connections, and lets a strategy become more natural before a new one is added.
Progress does not have to mean moving to the next page. It may mean using fewer prompts, writing a cleaner route, spotting a shortcut earlier, or reconstructing a fact with less effort than last time.
When a learner is still getting used to a method, part of their attention is already being used to remember the steps. Holding intermediate numbers in their head at the same time can quickly become too much.
Writing is a way of unloading some of that memory. Encourage the learner to write partial calculations, splits, intermediate answers, diagrams or short notes. That leaves more mental capacity available for the next piece of reasoning.
This is not a weakness or a shortcut around the mathematics. During learning, externalising the working can make the mathematics clearer. As the method becomes more familiar and automatic, the need to write things down usually diminishes. Fewer steps have to be consciously held and managed, so more of the process can gradually be carried out mentally.
Finish while the learner still feels successful and able to think clearly.
A short return tomorrow or in a few days can be more valuable than one long session.
Redoing the same activity is practice, not going backwards.
Add a new strategy when the current one is beginning to feel familiar, not simply because the page is finished.
Keep Learning and Recall as two separate stages
These stages have different purposes and should feel different to the learner. During the Learning stage, the aim is to understand, reconstruct and connect facts. During the Recall stage, the aim is to see whether a fact has become available automatically.
Write things down
Encourage the learner to use pen and paper, a whiteboard or a chalkboard. Draw groups, write partial calculations, split numbers, cross things out and try another route.
At this stage, the more useful working they put on the page, the better. Writing externalises the thinking, reduces the load on working memory and leaves a visible trail that you can discuss together.
Do not ask for instant answers yet. The goal is to build reliable ways of reaching them.
First response: from memory
Here the first attempt should be an automatic response, calculated purely in the head. This is the moment to find out whether the fact itself is becoming retrievable.
If the first answer is wrong, or nothing comes: stop testing recall and switch back to mathematics. Let the learner work it out using a known strategy.
If they still cannot reconstruct it, then reveal or check the answer. The sequence matters.
Does the answer come immediately?
If not, work it out mentally using a strategy.
If the route fails, reveal or check the answer.
Do not blur the two stages. If a child is still learning a table, allowing and encouraging written working is exactly right. Asking them to suppress that working in the name of “recall” can remove the very support that is helping the mathematics form.
Later, once you deliberately enter the Recall stage, remove the paper for the first attempt so you can observe automatic retrieval. But a failed recall attempt is not the end of the question: it becomes a reconstruction opportunity.
A learner can be excellent at reconstructing a fact before it becomes automatic. That is genuine mathematical progress. Recall practice should measure and strengthen automaticity. It should not replace the earlier work of understanding how the facts are built.
Use a manageable daily target: a number of questions or 5, 10 or 15 minutes. We recommend no more than 15 minutes in one session.
The useful record is not only accuracy. Track whether answers were recalled, worked out, or needed help. Those states tell you whether you are looking at an automaticity issue, a strategy issue, or a gap in understanding.