Multiplication Fact Fluency survey result

I recently asked over 300 teachers about their multiplication fluency thoughts.
This is a brief post summarising the results.

Background

83% of the respondents were primary or middle school teachers, 12% were secondary school teachers and the rest were parents and other roles. Some people were teachers as well as parents and other roles.

Which tables

I asked which tables their learners should be fluent in. 61% said 0 to 12 and 36% said 0 to 10. This is interesting as the New Zealand curriculum requires up to ten, not twelve. You can see in the graph that nearly twice as many NZ teachers said they should be fluent up to twelve compared with those saying up to ten.

What age

I asked by what age they felt the learners should be fluent. The meaning of fluent was left to the respondent. There was a clear majority for age nine or ten. The age group profile was similar between countries.

How important

It was very clear that most respondents felt that it was important for learners to be fluent with their multiplication tables. The options were 1 to 5 with 1 being Not at all important and 5 Extremely important. No one put 1. Ninety percent of respondents said 4 or 5.

What about timed testing

Opinion is more split over the role of timed testing. Those of us who think it is not a good way to develop fluency still have plenty of work to do to get the message out.

What now?

Thank you to those who offered their input. I hope they found their free resources helpful.
I have created a set of resources for all tables 2 to 9 and the squares. You can get a free sample of them here.

I have also made a video to explain the method used.

Further involvement

If you would like to provide feedback and find out as more resources are developed, join the Facebook Group Maths Number Fluency NZ.