Talking Times Tables is a subscription service.
You get 5 calls per week, at times that you schedule yourself.
The lessons are structured for steady, consistent progress, building slowly over the month to give children plenty of practice at what they're learning.
Each lesson has a corresponding worksheet, which comes in printable and online formats.
You will be emailed with new worksheets when your child starts to learn a new times table. All you need to do is print them off, and leave them out ready for when the phone rings.
A subscription costs £15 per month - that's around £3.50/week.
The programme is paced to complete one times table every four weeks - giving your children time to properly memorise that table before moving on to the next.
If the pace isn't quite right for you, you can skip forward or re-play lessons as required. All the settings are in your control panel.
You can cancel your subscription with one click from within your control panel.
The great thing about thoroughly learning the times tables, is how familiar your children become with common patterns of multiplication.
They'll use that knowledge through to GCSE maths and beyond.
In Year 4, when they start fractions, in Year 6 when they encounter ratios, and right up through senior school when they're learning about probability and proportion - they'll learn more quickly and easily if they have a ready grasp of the multiplication tables.
On the other hand, not knowing their tables puts children at a significant disadvantage.
Teachers expect children to have a good grasp of the fundamentals when they're teaching new topics.
Both teachers and the national curriculum allow a certain amount of time to cover a new concept, and children who are familiar with the underlying mathematical facts will grasp those concepts quickly and keep up with the explanations.
Sadly, children who are less familiar with their tables may struggle with new concepts, and end up concluding that they're 'no good at maths'.
This really isn't the case!
It's rare for children who thoroughly learned their number bonds and multiplication tables to struggle with primary school maths.
But learning how to learn their 'maths facts', while keeping pace with everything else in their lives, can be a challenge.
(We definitely struggled with this! We're a mathematical household, but teaching our kids times tables was still a nightmare until I delegated to an automated recording of myself... You can read my story here.)
Give Talking Times Tables a go!
Get the basics down, and enjoy the more complicated concepts when they come along!
If you have unanswered questions about Talking Times Tables, there's lots of information on this site. You can:
But realistically, the best way to decide whether it will work for you is to give it a go.
At £1 for the first week, most people can afford to 'try before they commit'.
You can cancel your subscription with one click from within your control panel.