Your child can do the nine times table. You have watched them: both hands up, fold down the sixth finger, count five tens on one side and four ones on the other, and out comes 54. So why did they freeze in the Multiplication Tables Check?
Because the check doesn't ask whether your child can work out 9 × 6. It asks whether they know it, in six seconds flat.
The difference between working it out and knowing it
There is nothing wrong with a trick. The nine-times finger method is clever, and "add a zero" for the tens is genuinely how the maths works. Tricks are a brilliant bridge, a way to reach the right answer while a fact is still settling.
The mistake is treating the bridge as the destination. A child who reaches for the finger method every single time hasn't learned 9 × 6. They have learned a reliable way to avoid learning it. With no time pressure, nobody notices. Give them six seconds, and the gap shows instantly.
What actually builds instant recall
Recall is not a personality trait that some children have and others lack. It is built, and the method is well understood.
In plain terms: what makes 7 × 8 instant is being asked "what's 7 × 8?" and pulling the answer out of your own head, over and over, on different days, with quick feedback when it is wrong. Not from staring at a printed grid. Not from reciting the table from the top each time.
This is also why the sing-song "two fours are eight, three fours are twelve" routine lets children down. It builds the sequence rather than the fact. Ask for 4 × 7 cold and they have to run the whole tune from the start, which is exactly what six seconds will not allow.
A trick walks your child to the answer. Practising the answer until it is instant means it is already waiting when the clock starts.
How to make the switch at home
You don't need to ban the tricks. You need to make them unnecessary. Keep the sessions short and frequent. Ask the facts in random order rather than top to bottom, and let your child say "I just know it" more often than "let me work it out". When a fact still needs the trick, that is simply the one to practise tomorrow.
A calm way to start is the free interactive times tables grid, where you can explore the patterns with no clock at all. Once recall is building, our Year 4 practice check rehearses the real six-second format so the test itself holds no surprises.
Two things also make the job smaller than it looks: learning the tables in the right order, and realising that only a handful of facts are genuinely hard.
If your child "knows" their tables but stumbles under the clock, they don't need more tricks. They need the facts to become automatic, and short, frequent retrieval is how that happens.
Start with the complete guide to the Multiplication Tables Check.
Sources: Standards & Testing Agency, "Multiplication Tables Check" guidance (DfE); Dunlosky et al. (2013), "Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques".
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