How the Instant Recall Method Came About
Along with Mandip Sohal, Tony Lazar is one of the founders of The Learning Well and devised the method used here to enable children to learn Multiplication Times Tables with 100% Instant Recall.
Tony has over 20 years teaching experience. He has taught very many children over this time in both state and private schools and has tutored children to improve their general academic abilities and to pass the entrance examinations of some of the top private schools in the United Kingdom. A large focus of Tony’s effort has been in the teaching of maths and in particular Multiplication Tables.
As Tony says;
“I have always aimed to make my lessons both fun and informative”.
Multiplication Times Tables are the foundation blocks of maths and everybody has to learn them. Children begin to learn them at a young age soon after they start school.
How well your children learn Tables has a very direct effect on how they progress in Maths at school.
Tony has been instrumental in teaching hundreds of children their times tables and getting them to learn them using a method that enables children to easily remember them.
Learning the multiplication tables in this way greatly boosts children’s confidence and love of maths.
Tony says;
“I know from 20 years of teaching experience that a good education is one of the best things you can give your children. I am sure that you already have realised this, and are looking to give your child or children a head start, that’s what has brought you here to this Maths Membership site in the first place”.
The majority of children do not learn their Multiplication Times Tables properly and as a consequence, many lose confidence in maths. This lack of confidence can spread to other subjects. Children can simply believe they are no good at Maths, and become unreceptive to receiving the good education they deserve, and all because they have not been taught in a way that makes Times Tables easy to remember.
There are clear reasons why some children learn Multiplication Times Tables properly so they can easily remember them and most do not.
Traditionally the school system teaches Multiplication Times Tables in rote fashion which is a slow laborious process. Your children do not behave and think like this. They have a vivid and colourful imagination, cannot sit still for long, and do not concentrate for the long periods of time needed for rote learning to work.
What children need is a learning method that uses the way children are to enable them to learn easily.
Rote learning is a very linear method for teaching Multiplication Times Tables. The problem with it is that the answers are also retrieved by your child from their memory in a linear fashion. This method is time consuming and it takes effort to get to the correct answer.
If getting to the answer becomes, or seems to be, too much effort, your children will simply give up and not do it anymore. At this point, it becomes harder and harder to effectively learn the Tables and your child will lose confidence in their ability to know the Tables.
Because school teachers have a curriculum to follow, and there is an accepted way of teaching Multiplication Times Tables, their lessons are not designed to try anything different.
Young children cannot concentrate for long periods of time, and school lessons are not designed around this. This can often lead to concentration problems.
Some parents understandably become frustrated at their children not being able to remember the simplest of tables. This often results in negative comments which can be discouraging for children, leaving them feeling that they are ‘bad’ at maths and reducing their confidence.
The way to build confidence in maths is to create a feeling of confidence and ability right from the start. This can easily be done with Multiplication Times Tables and as they are learned early on they are therefore an ideal place to start building confidence in Maths.
When your children can recall the Times Tables instantly – without having to think about the answer- they will feel confident, they will believe that they are good at maths. When your children are confident they will be happy and enjoy learning far more.
This confidence spreads to the other subjects as they start to develop good learning habits and attitudes.
Tony says that during the early years of teaching he saw the effect on children of not being able to learn their tables;
“I felt disheartened & saddened to see children losing confidence in maths.
They all deserved a better deal.
I also saw that some school teachers were not able to recognise this, and sometimes not even realise that there was a problem, or if they did realise, they felt they could not change the whole education system.
I also saw parents like you – intelligent and caring, who take a lot pride in their children, wanting to do 
something good to help them with their maths, but not knowing what.
I am sure that you can remember back your early schooldays – I can remember clearly how I disliked Maths. I used to struggle with my multiplication times tables and really disliked rote learning.
If you felt like this at school, or feel less confident with your maths now, you are not alone.
You may already be good at maths but this is no guarantee that your children will also be good at maths. I have seen this over and over again in my teaching career, where parents who are good at maths, simply cannot understand why their child is not.
So I decided to do something about it.
I was both a teacher and tutor, and was uniquely placed to make a direct impact. I could easily try out different methods and see what actually worked and made a positive difference to children’s abilities.
I spent several years researching the best learning methods and then trying them out in the classroom and during private tutoring to see which really worked. Should the children try singing, playing games, flash cards, computer programs or some other method?
One by one I looked at each of the different methods. I judged each one by results. What I discovered was that they did not give any better result when compared rote learning.
The main reason for this is because they are all these methods that teach in a linear fashion and the children have to recall the tables in a linear fashion – the same way as rote learning.
When I started to study what the world memory champions did, I saw how their expertise could be used to create a simple method for learning Multiplication Times Tables.
I added to this my experiences of working with children, and put my ideas together to create an a step by step method of learning the times tables that resulted in the children being able to recall the answers in an instant.
These children very quickly learned to love maths and numbers.
The first time I tried the method, I was amazed at how successful it was at helping children know their times tables – it worked like a magical charm!
I then spent several years trying it out, refining the method and improving it. During this time very many children have used this method to learn and know their Multiplication Times Tables.
With the creation of The Learning Well I decided it was finally time to fulfil a 20 year wish and reveal this magical method to many more caring parents like you, so that your children can have the best chance of receiving a good education. I know how important this is.”
The method that Tony came up with for learning Multiplication tables and then developed with Mandip Sohal of The Learning Well does not use rote learning and it does not result in your children learning in a linear way.
Instead the method uses the tables linked to images which are linked to locations. This is the way that the memory champions remember. It is easy to use and gives brilliant results so that your children will be able to know their tables the instant they are asked.
The method is called the 100% Instant Recall Method and is available to you when you join and become a Member of our learning community.
To make a huge difference to your children’s abilities in maths and their ability to know their multiplication times tables become a Member of the online Times Tables Maths Tutor today.
Membership of the Tutor and this learning community is currently only £27.00, and a wonderful investment in your children’s learning and their future. All of us The Learning Well look forward to wecoming you as a valued Member.