Building strong math skills is essential for both the academic and life success of your child. As a secondary school math teacher, it is clear to me that basic addition and multiplication skills lay the foundation for success in the mathematics and science subjects at school. This has significant roll-on effects for your child’s life including their future education, employment, lifespan and general happiness.

For the majority of children these skills require hard work to master, but the effort that we as parents invest in this is well worth it.

We do not need to experts in the field of education in order to give our kids a great headstart to their education in this area. Solid, regular practice of the multiplication tables will help your child to memorise these important facts. Addition practice gives similar results.

The purpose of this work is to allow your child the freedom to concentrate on new skills that are taught in math classes at school without the need to continually refer to addition or multiplication tables. The result is more productive math lessons. There is nothing like success in a lesson or a subject to promote confidence and enthusiasm in your child.

I make times tables practice a regular feature of my classroom math teaching regardless of the age of my students. I have seen children of all ages from eight to fifteen rapidly improve their mental math skills as a result. Consequently, these students have gained confidence and skill in this subject. This has even applied to students who had no faith in their own abilities in math before this practice was undertaken.

Combined with a variety of learning-centered math games, this basic drilling of facts has a profound effect on a child. They can see that the work is not only possible, but even enjoyable. This is truly the pathway to success, for a child that wants to study math will have many more options open to them in life than one who does not.

By: Roger Vanderlely