Texas Overhauls Elementary Math | Times Tables Games

When I looked into the TEA's recent policy direction, what stood out to me was the emphasis on *understanding* over *speed*. The concern driving the changes is clear: post-pandemic STAAR math scores across elementary grades have exposed how fragile purely memorised recall can be. Children who were drilled on times tables often cannot apply that knowledge in a different context, or under any kind of pressure.

The revised TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) standards push educators toward building real mathematical thinking, not just training children to retrieve facts quickly. That's a meaningful distinction. A child who understands that 6 x 7 is the same as 6 groups of 7 things, or that it connects to 6 x 6 plus one more six, will hold onto that knowledge. A child who has only ever repeated "forty-two" on command can lose it the moment the format changes.

The core problem with drill-and-kill isn't that it teaches the wrong facts. It's that it teaches children to stop thinking.

This is something we keep hearing in the conversations we're having with schools and parents, both here in the UK and now increasingly in the US. Rote repetition without meaning creates anxiety, not fluency. Children begin to associate maths with speed, with being put on the spot, with getting it wrong in front of others. By the time they reach upper primary, a significant number have simply decided they're "not a maths person."

That label, once it sticks, is incredibly hard to shift.

What the research consistently shows, and what Texas appears to be building into policy, is that children learn maths better when they're allowed to play with the relationships between numbers. Not in a vague, unstructured way, but through activities that require them to make decisions, spot patterns and use multiplication facts purposefully in context.

At XTables Champions, we built everything around this idea. Our platform turns times tables into multiplayer games that children actually want to play: Snap, Connect Four, Bingo, Battleship and others. These aren't games with a thin layer of maths bolted on. The maths *is* the game. To win at Battleship, you have to think about multiplication. To play Snap, you have to recognise equivalences quickly but meaningfully, because you've seen the relationship before in a context that made sense.

When I first saw our "Show Me How" visual breakdowns sitting alongside the games, I understood what we were going for. It's not about making maths feel fun as a consolation prize. It's about building the kind of repeated, meaningful exposure to number relationships that actually creates long-term understanding.

As our founder Gal Darrash puts it, "Children don't resist maths. They resist feeling like they're failing at something they were never properly shown how to understand."

That framing sits very comfortably alongside what Texas is trying to do with its TEKS revision. The goal isn't to lower expectations. It's to build a foundation that actually holds.

Here's the practical bit, because I know that for Texas educators and parents right now, STAAR scores are a real and pressing concern.

Conceptual fluency and STAAR preparation are not opposites. In fact, I'd argue that the approach the TEA is now endorsing is the more reliable route to better scores, precisely because it builds understanding that transfers. A child who genuinely grasps multiplication, who has practised using it in varied, game-based contexts, is better placed to handle an unfamiliar question on a test than one who has only ever seen the same flashcard format.

From the schools we speak to in the UK, we see this play out. Children who engage with game-based maths stop fearing the subject. They start attempting questions they'd previously have skipped. That shift in confidence is not a soft outcome. It shows up in results.

For Texas, the alignment between what XTables Champions does and what the updated TEKS standards ask for feels genuinely close. Our games are built around the multiplication facts that appear across Grades 3 to 5 in the TEKS framework. The conceptual approach embedded in our platform, including the analytics dashboards that help teachers and parents see exactly where understanding is breaking down, fits the kind of informed, targeted intervention that schools are now being asked to deliver.

Texas has enormous influence on US education. When a state that size shifts its curriculum philosophy, it tends to move the conversation nationally. I think what's happening with the TEKS revision is genuinely encouraging, not just for Texas, but as a signal that the tide is turning against anxiety-producing, drill-only approaches across the board.

For parents reading this, whether you're in Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth or anywhere else your child is sitting STAAR exams, the question worth asking is not "how do I get my child to memorise their tables faster?" but "how do I help them actually understand multiplication in a way they'll carry forward?"

Those are different questions, and they lead to different kinds of support.

If you're a Texas educator looking for a maths intervention tool that aligns with the direction the TEA is heading, or a parent trying to move beyond flashcard frustration, I'd love for you to explore what XTables Champions offers.

We're a small, early-stage team, and we're genuinely interested in hearing from schools and families navigating this shift, especially in Texas right now. Get in touch through our website at xtableschampions.com to find out how our games and support tools could fit into your classroom or your child's learning at home. We're happy to talk through what we do and whether it makes sense for you.