“In my experience, children who do not put some direct effort into memorising their ‘times tables’ never learn them, and it really holds them back. They are slow at multiplying, and even slower at dividing. They all but grind to a halt when simplifying fractions, finding least common multiples or highest common factors. Consequently, they struggle with elementary algebra, e.g. expanding/factorising algebraic expressions including quadratics, working with algebraic fractions. This is no surprise.”
Source: Mathmo
MindMaps 