Times Tables: The importance and relevance of having a good knowledge of multiplication facts

Times Tables: The importance and relevance of having a good knowledge of multiplication facts

I have been privileged to teach all ages from eight year olds to eighteen year olds and the one thing I have noticed time and time again is how a lack of times tables knowledge hampers the youngsters' learning in so many topics.

Let me give you a few examples of their use to show the scope of the problem, but this list is by no means comprehensive (that would need a very long article!).

a) Obviously any form of multiplication sums involving whole numbers, decimals, money or measurement.

b) Fractions - cancelling and changing improper fractions to proper fractions and vice versa. The four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

c) Finding angles in shapes (e.g What are the interior angles of a regular octagon?).

d) Finding factors and multiples and related topics such as prime numbers, square numbers and triangles.

e) Expanding and factorising algebraic expressions(e.g. expand 7(6m + 9n)).

f) Lowest common multiple and highest common factor.

g) Finding areas and volumes.

h) Calculations involving speed.

i) Finding averages.

Well, I guess you get the idea. But it's not just the fact that youngsters lose marks in their work by making silly tables errors, but they also lose time practising different aspects of topics simply because of the time it takes them to work out the simplest of calculations.

And please don't forget, almost every external examination now has a non-calculator paper as well as a calculator one, so it's crazy to not get the grade they really need simply because of a lack of this critical skill.

By the way, if you believe your children need more practice please click on Times Tables.

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