How to Learn Multiplication Timestables in 21 Days

How to Learn Multiplication Timestables in 21 Days Lets face it, when you dont know your times tables, it slows down your progress in math. Some things you just have to know and committing the times tables to memory is one of them. Today, were in an information age, information is doubling faster than it ever used to and our math teachers no longer have the luxury of assisting us to learn the times tables. In case you havent noticed, the math curriculum is much larger than it ever was. Students and parents are now left with the task of helping to commit the times tables to memory. So lets get started: Step 1 First of all, you will need to be able to skip count or count by a certain number. For instance 2,4,6,8,10 or 5, 10, 15, 20, 25. Now you will need to use your fingers and  skip counting. Remember back in grade 1 when you used to use your fingers to count to 10? Now youll need them to skip-count. For example, use your fingers to count by 10. First finger or thumb is 10, second is 20, third is 30. Therefore 1 x 10 10, 2 x 10 20 and so on and so forth. Why use your fingers? Because its an effective strategy. Any strategy that improves speed with your tables is worth using! Step 2 How many skip counting patterns do you know? Probably the 2s, 5s and 10s. Practice tapping these out on your fingers. Step 3 Now youre ready for the doubles. Once you learn the doubles, you have the counting up strategy. For instance, if you know that 7 x 7 49, then youll count up 7 more to quickly determine that 7 x 8 56. Once again, effective strategies are almost as good as memorizing your facts. Remember, you already know the 2s, 5s and 10s. Now you need to concentrate on 3x3, 4x4, 6x6, 7x7, 8x8 and 9x9. Thats only committing 6 facts to memory! Youre three-quarters of the way there. If you memorize those doubles, youll have an effective strategy to quickly obtain most of the remaining facts! Step 4 Not counting the doubles, you have the 3s, 4s, 6s, 7s and 8s. Once you know what 6x7 is, youll also know what 7x6 is. For the remaining facts (and there arent many) you will want to learn by skip-counting, in fact, use a familiar tune while skip counting! Remember to tap your fingers (just as you did when  counting) each time you skip count, this enables you to know which fact youre on. When skip counting by 4s and when youve tapped on the fourth finger, youll know that its the 4x416 fact. Think of Mary Had A Little Lamb in your mind. Now apply 4,8, 12, 16, (Mary had a....)and continue on! Once youve learned to skip-count by 4s as easily as you can by 2s, youre ready for the next fact family. Dont worry if you forget the odd one, you will be able to fall back on your doubling strategy and counting up. Remember, being able to do math well means having great strategies. The above strategies will help you learn the times tables. However, you will need to commit daily time to these strategies to learn your tables in 21 days. Try some of the following: Each day when you wake up, skip count the fact family youre working on.Each time you walk through a doorway, skip count again (silently)Each time you use the washroom, skip count!Each time the phone rings, skip count!During every commercial when youre watching TV, skip count! When you go to bed each night, skip count for 5 minutes.If you stick it out, youll have your tables memorized in 21 days!Here are a few multiplication tricks to help you. Try these worksheets which are developed to correspond to the correct way of learning your multiplication tables.