Times Tables Tricks That Actually Work
By the Kindly Useful team, updated 2026-11-05
Free printable math worksheets
Learning the times tables to 12 sounds like memorizing 144 facts. It's really much less, and with a few patterns most of them can be worked out instantly. Here's how to make it manageable for a child (or an adult who never quite got the 7s).
You only need to learn about 30 facts
- Order doesn't matter: 3 × 8 is the same as 8 × 3. That alone halves the work (78 unique facts up to 12 × 12).
- The easy tables give you most of the rest: once the 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s and 11s are solid, only about 30 "hard" facts remain.
The best order to learn them
- ×1 and ×10: the number itself, or the number with a zero.
- ×2: double the number.
- ×5: half of ×10 (5 × 8 = half of 80 = 40). Answers end in 0 or 5.
- ×11 (up to 9): repeat the digit, 11 × 7 = 77.
- ×9: the finger trick (below).
- ×4: double, then double again.
- ×3: count by threes, or double the number and add it once more.
- ×6: ×5 plus one more group (6 × 7 = 35 + 7 = 42).
- ×8: double three times (8 × 6: 12, 24, 48).
- ×12: ×10 plus ×2 (12 × 7 = 70 + 14 = 84).
- ×7: by now, only 7 × 7 = 49 is genuinely new!
Tricks for each table
The 9s finger trick. Hold up ten fingers. For 9 × 4, fold down your fourth finger. There are 3 fingers to the left and 6 to the right: 36. Also, the digits of the answer always add up to 9 (36: 3 + 6 = 9), which makes answers easy to check.
The 9s pattern. The tens digit is one less than the number you multiply by, and the two digits always add up to 9. So for 9 × 7 the tens digit is 6, the ones digit is 3, and the answer is 63.
Even numbers × 6. For 6 × an even number, the answer ends in the same digit, and the tens digit is half of it: 6 × 4 = 24, 6 × 8 = 48.
5, 6, 7, 8. 56 = 7 × 8. The digits 5, 6, 7, 8 are in order.
12 × 12 = 144. A gross! Worth just memorizing.
A 5-minute daily routine
- One minute of review: say yesterday's facts out loud.
- Two minutes on one new fact family: for example, all the ×6 facts, using the trick for that table.
- Two minutes of mixed practice: a short worksheet that mixes old and new facts.
Short, daily and mixed beats long and occasional. Accuracy comes first; only add a timer once a child gets everything right without one.
Signs a fact is really learned
A fact is learned when the answer comes in under about three seconds without counting. Keep practicing the slow ones and skip the instant ones.
Free practice sheets
Our multiplication worksheets and single-table drills generate a fresh sheet every time, with an answer key on a separate page.