Five steps
How to memorize times tables fast
Rote chanting works eventually, but it treats every fact as equally hard. This is a faster route: learn the whole table once, then spend your practice time only on the handful of facts that actually trip you up.
1. Learn the table once, properly
Read through the whole table from ×1 to ×10 slowly, out loud if possible. The goal here isn't memorization yet — it's just seeing the pattern. Every times table page on this site lays the table out for exactly this step.
2. Find out what you already know
Most of a table is usually already known — it's a small number of facts that cause the trouble. An ungraded check, like Test Yourself mode, shows exactly which ones without any pressure.
3. Drill only the tricky ones
Once you know which facts are shaky — often things like 7 × 8 or 6 × 7 — practice those specifically instead of the whole table again. Repeating facts you already know wastes time and makes practice feel longer than it needs to.
4. Quiz yourself with typed answers
Recognizing the right answer in a multiple-choice list is a different skill from recalling it from memory. A typed times table quiz is a much better test of whether a fact has actually stuck.
5. Come back the next day
Short, repeated practice across several days beats one long session. Five or ten minutes a day for a week will usually get a table fully memorized — and this site remembers which facts were missed last time, so each session picks up right where the last one left off.
Questions parents ask
How long does it take to memorize a times table?
Most children can learn the shape of a table in one sitting and have it fully memorized within a week of short, daily practice — usually five to ten minutes a day rather than one long session.
What's the fastest way to memorize times tables?
Learn the table once, take an ungraded quiz to find out which specific facts are missed, then spend practice time only on those facts instead of repeating the whole table from the start every time.
Should my child memorize times tables in order?
No. Starting with the 2, 5 and 10 times tables builds confidence fast because their patterns are the most obvious, then moving to 3, 4 and 6, and leaving 7, 9, 13, 17 and 19 for last works better than going strictly 1 to 20.