Why chanting the tables does not work
The most common method, and the least reliable.
- The child remembers the tune, not the fact — A column learned in order only comes back from the start. Asked "what is seven times eight", they have to scroll the whole row.
- You always ask in order — Tests ask facts mixed up while practice ran in sequence — those are two different skills.
- Taking all of it at once — A hundred squares in a week will not happen. Twenty-one hard facts in two weeks will.
What is actually left to learn out of a hundred cells
The table frightens people with that hundred. After two rounds of crossing out, twenty-one facts remain — and the whole fight is with those.
Half of them are the same facts
6×7 and 7×6 are one fact, not two. That single crossing-out removes forty-five cells out of a hundred — and it is worth the child seeing it on their own sheet rather than hearing it from you.
The 1, 2, 5 and 10 columns are free
Times 1 and times 10 a child understands at once, times 2 is doubling, times 5 is half of ten. That is another thirty-four cells nobody has to memorise.
Twenty-one hard ones remain
Typically 6×7, 6×8, 7×8, 7×9, 8×9 and their neighbours. Only these get turned into images — and only these deserve the real work.
Four stages
The first two simply cut the work — do not skip them.
- Remove half of it
6×7 and 7×6 are one fact. Say it out loud and show it on the grid: half the squares disappear at once.
- Take away the easy columns
1 and 10 are rules, not memory. 2 is doubling. 5 ends in 0 or 5 — half of ten times. Those are the four columns you cross out. The nine stays in the core, but it has a prop: the digits of the answer always add up to nine, and there is the finger trick.
- Turn the hard facts into scenes
6×7, 7×8, 6×8, 7×7 and neighbours. Each number becomes an image, each fact a short scene with the answer inside it. The child invents it: their own image holds better than a borrowed one.
- Practise mixed up, with gaps
Cards or spoken questions in random order, ten minutes at a time. Repeat today, tomorrow, in three days, in a week.
Ask "what is seven times eight", not "recite the seven column" — that is how school will ask.
A hundred cells after two rounds of crossing out
Take squared paper and do this with your child — five minutes that change the whole conversation about the times table.
What learning looks like without crossing out
- The child works column by column, in order, from 1 to 10.
- Each column is ten facts, a hundred in total — and that is exactly how it looks from their side.
- The 1, 2, 5 and 10 columns go quickly, so the first week feels like success.
- Then the 7s and 8s arrive, the pace drops, and the feeling is that a great deal is still left.
The same table after crossing out
- You draw a 10×10 grid and cross out everything below the diagonal: 6×7 and 7×6 are one.
- You cross out rows and columns 1, 2, 5 and 10 — the child checks each one and confirms for themselves that they know it.
- Twenty-one cells are left on the sheet. The child sees them all at once, and for the first time the table looks finite.
- Only those cells get a scene: 7×8 = 56 — seven eights lined up in a row, and five small sixes running away at the end.
- Questions come at random and spaced out, never by column.
Crossing out memorises nothing. It does something else and more important: it turns “a hundred things to learn” into a list you can see on one sheet — and that decides whether the child starts at all.
Cross out your own table — five minutes
You need squared paper and a pencil. The child does it; you only ask the questions.
- Draw a ten by ten grid
No answers written in. Just empty cells with the numbers along the edges.
- Cross out the repeats
Everything below the diagonal. Ask: “are 6×7 and 7×6 the same thing?”. The child answers and crosses out themselves — this is the moment a hundred turns into fifty-five.
- Cross out the columns they already know
In turn: 1, 10, 2, 5. For each one you ask three random facts. If they come out, the column leaves the sheet.
- Count what is left
The child counts the cells themselves and says the number out loud.
If the child crossed out all four easy columns, exactly twenty-one cells remain — and that is the only number that matters in all of this. If noticeably more are left, the 2 or the 5 column is not secure yet, and that is where you start, because it is the cheapest.
Do not cross out for the child and do not rush this step. The whole value is in them seeing how much is really left — hearing it from a parent works far less well.
What the research says
Two papers behind the fourth stage: asking at random and spaced out.
Roediger and Karpicke, 2006 — retrieval from memory
Recalling material holds it longer than reading it again, and the gap grows over time. For the times table that means a question at random instead of one more read-through of a column.
Cepeda et al., 2006 — a review of 184 papers on spacing
The same minutes spread over several days give better recall than one long session. Hence a short quiz every day instead of an hour on Sunday.
These studied general principles of learning, not our course and not the times table itself. Crossing out repeats and easy columns is not a conclusion from these papers but arithmetic — yet it is what keeps the spaced reviews a sensible size.
Four parent mistakes
They turn two weeks of work into two months.
Asking in order
The child answers with momentum and seems to know it. Mixed up, it turns out they do not.
Taking the whole table at once
Work on three or four hard facts at a time until they are automatic.
Pushing for speed too early
Correct first, fast second. Rushing at the start builds errors you then have to unteach.
Telling them off for mistakes
Under pressure recall shuts down. A mistake means looking at the scene together once more, then moving on.
When and how much
Rough guide, following the usual school pace.
| Age | What to practise and how much |
|---|---|
| Age 7–8 | The 2, 5 and 10 columns as rules. Leave the rest alone for now. |
| Age 8–9 | Shrinking the table and the hard core as scenes, ten minutes a day. |
| Age 9–10 and up | Speed: 30 mixed facts in a minute. Write the result down weekly — the growth is visible. |
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Who wrote this
The same approach we teach in Space Memory classes: numbers become images, facts become scenes, and repetitions are spaced over time.
Questions and answers
How long does it take?
Two to three weeks at ten minutes a day. Faster happens, but holds worse: the spacing is what does the work.
My child counts on fingers — is that bad?
No, it is a normal stage. Fingers drop away by themselves once the hard facts are automatic.
Do we need flashcards?
Handy, not essential. What matters is random order and short sessions.
What about the nine times table?
The digits of the answer always add up to nine: 9×6 = 54, 5+4 = 9. There is also the finger trick, which is enough for many children.
Knows it at night, forgets by morning
Missing repetitions. Add one before bed and one in the morning — the cheapest fix there is.
Does this only work for tables?
No. Formulas, dates and vocabulary are learned the same way: image, scene, mixed-up repetition.
More on memory
- How to improve memory for kids
- Why children forget so quickly
- A child who does not remember what they studied
- How to train a child's memory
What next
The same method on different material.
Memory course for kids
The same techniques in weekly classes with a coach, on material from school.
Memory training for kids
What memory training is and what a child practises in class.
Memory test for kids online
Check for free how your child remembers now — before you start practising.
How to memorize a poem
Six steps: split it, turn it into pictures, link them, repeat three times.
Speed reading exercises
Seven to do at home: a baseline, a pointer, a column of words, reading with a question.
Memory palace for kids
A familiar place as a ten-stop route — for long lists and talks.
Space Memory — online memory school
How classes work, terms and how to join.
If the tables have dragged on for months
Sometimes the problem is not maths but that the child has no way of memorising at all. Start with the free test — it shows where the difficulty is.
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