How few facts there are

Before you read anything

Say the seven times table out loud. All the way to twelve.

Now say only the ones you had to stop and work out. That shorter list is the whole of what is left to do.

How many there really are

A hundred and forty-four cells. Ones and tens go, then twos and fives, then every fact below the diagonal, which is one above it turned round. Thirty-six are left.

Where the rest went

Ones and tens are place value, which was module 3. Twos are the doubles from module 2, and a five is half a ten. Lesson 4.2 took the entire bottom half.

Thirty-six. That is what you are actually being asked to hold.

Why hold any of them

:x nutshell-fluency

Accurate, quick and flexible — which is not the same as fast. Someone who answers in a second by counting is not fluent, and someone who takes two and knows why is.

Not because tables are virtuous. Because a head busy working out $6 \times 7$ has no room left for the question that needed it. :Fluency is room, and room is what makes the harder work possible at all.

Practise the ones that are due

Table Rush — The twelve tables, spaced out over days rather than crammed.

The one it cannot help you with

$7 \times 14$. There is no fourteen times table, there is never going to be one, and numbers like this turn up constantly.

You know $7 \times 10$ and you know $7 \times 4$. What could you do with those?

Check yourself

Six to try

Two of these are strays. Two are facts. Two have a box in them, and the box is the one you have to hunt for.

1

Which of these is not in the $5$ times table?

2

Which of these is not in the $4$ times table?

3

$4 \times 6$

4

$4 \times 3$

5

$9 \times \square = 99$. What goes in the box?

6

$4 \times \square = 40$. What goes in the box?

The thirty-six · page 1 of 2 Print it

The thirty-six · page 2 of 2 Print it

Show that you have it

Leaning one fact on another

The first fact is given to you. Do not work the second one out from scratch — get to it from the one you have.

1

You know $5 \times 9 = 45$. What is $6 \times 9$?

2

You know $2 \times 6 = 12$. What is $3 \times 6$?

Check what stuck The whole thing on one page