Why it helps
Early number skills matter for a long time. Across six large long-term studies, the math skills children had when they started school, at about age 5, were one of the strongest predictors of how they did at school in the years after.1 That is a link, not proof that extra practice causes better grades later, but it is a good reason to make early number facts feel friendly.
The best news for busy families is that little and often works. In a classroom study of 48 third graders, short one minute addition sprints spread across the day grew fact fluency faster than the same sprints done back to back.2 And some facts simply need more goes than others: records from 15,402 children showed that the 4, 5, 6 and 7 times tables needed more repetitions than the 2s and 3s.3 So if one table takes longer, your child is in very good company.
For parents
Math Workout is free to start. Pro is an optional one-time purchase that a grown up can make in the app; nothing on this page asks a child to buy anything.
Most workouts are one round of 10, 20 or 50 sums (20 unless you change it in Settings); a Times Table Master round is 12 sums per table; or one Math Run, which ends when the Muddle catches Doc. Your child can stop after any round.
On screen time for school-age children, the UK Chief Medical Officers found the evidence was not strong enough to set an "optimal" amount, and they advise agreeing boundaries as a family, screen-free mealtimes and phones out of the bedroom at night.4 Short rounds make that easy: play one, then do something else.
Math Workout shows no ads, has no advertising trackers and does not sell personal data (privacy policy). Free players see a Pro screen from time to time, for example when the day's free workouts are used up, and get one Math Run a day (three on their first day); if your child plays on your phone, it is worth checking your own purchase settings.
How Math Workout fits
A week can be very simple. Times Table Master works on the tables your child is learning, with a keypad or with handwriting, and its AI coach asks a missed fact again later in the round. A quick Add & Subtract round takes a few minutes (a round is 10, 20 or 50 sums). Method Lab's five free lessons, such as making ten, show a method step by step before your child tries it. And on game days, Math Run turns sums into gates to run through; its Practice runs work on the sums your child finds hard and are never ranked.
Built around science, for this age
Answering a sum from memory is a tiny quiz, and quizzing yourself is one of the best studied ways to learn: a meta-analysis of practice testing found that practice tests helped learning more than studying the material again.5 That is the idea behind the classic workouts. Spreading practice out also beats cramming it into one go, and the best gap grows the longer you want to remember,6 which is why the app's Progress review brings a fact back sooner when it is shaky and later when it is secure, and the AI coach in Times Table Master asks a missed fact again a little later.
Seeing a method worked through before trying it is another well tested idea: across 55 studies, learning from worked examples gave a medium sized boost to math performance.7 Method Lab is built on it.
How grown ups feel about math matters too. When parents were anxious about math and often helped with math homework, their young children learned less math over the school year and became more anxious about it (a link, not proof that one causes the other).8 In another study, 587 first graders who did short number story problems with a parent through an app gained more in math over the year than a reading control group, especially children whose parents felt anxious about math.9 A published reanalysis of that study found no significant overall effect, and the original authors stand by their results,10,11 so the safest lesson is the simple one: a little math at home, together, with a calm and relaxed attitude, is worth it.
Try it together
No pressure. Just see how it feels.
7 + 8 = ?
Show the answer
15
Turn on JavaScript to play this one against the clock.
Regular practice usually makes children quicker at the facts they practise.2,3 It does not replace their teacher, and number facts are one part of math, not all of it: understanding why a method works matters as much as recalling the answer. The studies on this page tested their own tasks with their own children (the home math study used a different app, done together with a parent). None of them tested Math Workout.
References
Written in APA 7 style. Tap a number in the text to jump here, and the arrow to jump back.
- 1
Duncan, G. J., Dowsett, C. J., Claessens, A., Magnuson, K., Huston, A. C., Klebanov, P., Pagani, L. S., Feinstein, L., Engel, M., Brooks-Gunn, J., Sexton, H., Duckworth, K., & Japel, C. (2007). School readiness and later achievement. Developmental Psychology, 43(6), 1428-1446. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.43.6.1428 (Correction: Developmental Psychology, 44(1), 232, https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.44.1.217)
- 2
Schutte, G. M., Duhon, G. J., Solomon, B. G., Poncy, B. C., Moore, K., & Story, B. (2015). A comparative analysis of massed vs. distributed practice on basic math fact fluency growth rates. Journal of School Psychology, 53(2), 149-159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2014.12.003
- 3
Burns, M. K., Ysseldyke, J., Nelson, P. M., & Kanive, R. (2015). Number of repetitions required to retain single-digit multiplication math facts for elementary students. School Psychology Quarterly, 30(3), 398-405. https://doi.org/10.1037/spq0000097
- 4
Davies, S. C., Atherton, F., Calderwood, C., & McBride, M. (2019). United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers' commentary on 'Screen-based activities and children and young people's mental health and psychosocial wellbeing: A systematic map of reviews'. Department of Health and Social Care. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5c5b1510e5274a316cee5be8/UK_CMO_commentary_on_screentime_and_social_media_map_of_reviews.pdf
- 5
Adesope, O. O., Trevisan, D. A., & Sundararajan, N. (2017). Rethinking the use of tests: A meta-analysis of practice testing. Review of Educational Research, 87(3), 659-701. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654316689306
- 6
Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354-380. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354
- 7
Barbieri, C. A., Miller-Cotto, D., Clerjuste, S. N., & Chawla, K. (2023). A meta-analysis of the worked examples effect on mathematics performance. Educational Psychology Review, 35(1), Article 11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-023-09745-1
- 8
Maloney, E. A., Ramirez, G., Gunderson, E. A., Levine, S. C., & Beilock, S. L. (2015). Intergenerational effects of parents' math anxiety on children's math achievement and anxiety. Psychological Science, 26(9), 1480-1488. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615592630
- 9
Berkowitz, T., Schaeffer, M. W., Maloney, E. A., Peterson, L., Gregor, C., Levine, S. C., & Beilock, S. L. (2015). Math at home adds up to achievement in school. Science, 350(6257), 196-198. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac7427
- 10
Frank, M. C. (2016). Comment on "Math at home adds up to achievement in school". Science, 351(6278), 1161. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad8008
- 11
Berkowitz, T., Schaeffer, M. W., Rozek, C. S., Maloney, E. A., Levine, S. C., & Beilock, S. L. (2016). Response to comment on "Math at home adds up to achievement in school". Science, 351(6278), 1161. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad8555
