The FACTS of the matter are...

I know, from talking to teachers, that some schools are planning to look at Number Facts (ie Tables), as part of Numeracy, in their SSE, this coming year. If this applies to you, you might be interested in these two articles, Approaches to teaching the basic number facts - Multiplication & Division: and Approaches to teaching the basic number facts - Addition & Subtraction:

Both of these emphasise how rote learning doesn't work for the basic number facts; rather we should teach the children to understand the connections and patterns both within and between groups of number facts. The articles explain how we should be teaching number facts (using a concrete - pictorial - abstract approach) and why this is better. They also provide a step by step approach for teachers. It is also worth pointing out that teaching the basic number facts for addition shouldn't just start in 1st class, nor multiplication in 3rd; rather the foundations for understanding the relationships between facts should be laid in younger classes (ie infants in the case of addition facts or first and second in the case of multiplication facts) through exploration of concrete manipulatives.