Why single-table practice isn't enough
When a child practises only the 6× table, their brain knows the answer will involve sixes. That context does half the work. Remove it — ask 6 × 7 immediately after 9 × 4 — and the recall becomes genuinely cold. Cold recall is what tests, mental maths and everyday problems demand.
When to start mixing
As soon as a child is fluent in two tables. In practice that's early Year 2, once 2× and 10× are secure. From that point, every session should end with a few mixed questions drawn from everything learnt so far. The mixed portion grows as the repertoire grows.
The 80/20 session
A good ten-minute session splits roughly:
- 8 minutes on the current table. The table being learnt this week.
- 2 minutes mixed. Random questions from every table already known.
Once all twelve tables are covered, invert it: two minutes of targeted work on the weakest facts, eight minutes fully mixed.
What mixing protects against
- The forgetting curve. A table learnt in October is gone by February without revisiting.
- Gear-change lag. Children who only drill one table at a time pause visibly when switching. That pause costs marks under time pressure.
- False confidence. A child who scores full marks on a 7× worksheet may score half on a mixed sheet. Better to find out at home.
Running mixed practice on paper
Write twenty questions in random order across every table your child knows. Don't group them. Don't go easy-to-hard. Include a few missing-number questions (8 × ? = 56) and a few divisions. Mark it together, then circle the three slowest and use those as tomorrow's warm-up.
Running mixed practice in an app
This is where apps genuinely beat paper. MathStar's Soundcheck mixes automatically, weights questions toward the facts your child is slowest on, and spaces repetition across days without anyone tracking it. Ten minutes covers what a parent would need twenty minutes to set up on paper.
What good looks like
By the end of Year 4: any fact from 2×2 to 12×12, in random order, answered within six seconds, on five consecutive days. Not a personal best — a consistent baseline. That's the standard the Multiplication Tables Check applies, and it's the standard that makes long multiplication, division, fractions and ratio manageable later.
A four-week mixed maintenance plan
- Week 1: Mixed practice across 2×, 5×, 10× only. Establish the habit.
- Week 2: Add 3×, 4×, 8×. Expect a dip — that's normal when the pool grows.
- Week 3: Add 6×, 7×, 9×. Note the three slowest facts each day.
- Week 4: Full 12×12 mixed at six seconds. Repeat weekly thereafter to hold the ground.