22B, there really seem to be some very bright kids (and adults) who struggle with memorizing the tables. This is not the case for my kids at all, but after seeing quite a few 99th% kids in DD's magnet have the issue, as well as reading posts here about it, I have to conclude that it is relatively common.
I think it's because our kids can instantly acquire concepts and procedures, but the times tables just don't work that way. They require effort and repetition.
ETA: I have to say, though, that the effort is well rewarded. Having that fluency is a huge confidence builder for the things that follow after.
I have the sort of opposite kind of kid (DD9) who is an amazing calculator--give her a page of hard long division and she will do it all perfectly--but who sometimes cannot follow conceptual things like word problems. She would prefer for all her math to be numbers only. She is great at mental math and would like that 24 game, but give her something like "A train leaves Philadelphia at 9:30 pm..." or "Bob is making a cabinet out of 9 pieces of wood..." and it's much harder for her.
My DD8 is the same way. She's a whiz at math operations. Give her a word problem, and she'll jump on the numbers and start doing all sorts of operations on them... before she's fully comprehended what operations she should be doing, and why.
I've explained it to my DW like this: math is basically another language. DD understands math, and she understands English, but translating between the two languages is a challenge.
