What's the point of teaching kids to memorize something that they can't apply? When I was a kid, schools taught multiplication tables in 2nd grade, when most kids are 7 years old. The difference in cognition between a 4 year old and 7 year old is insane.
I'd be surprised if there were any countries where multiplication was formally taught to pre-K students as part of the standard curriculum, but i'd love to be proven wrong.
I don't know if there are countries. I believe that if there actually was a unified accelerated math framework that was really emphasized starting age 4/5 then kids would be absolutely fantastic at math.
> What's the point ... ?
Paraphrasing what I said a comment above, you drill addition and subtraction until everyone is good at it, then you drill multiplication, then you do basic division, then you start introducing basic one variable algebra with "move plus to the other side to get minus" etc. The application is using algebra for word problems; formalism can come later.
I'd be surprised if there were any countries where multiplication was formally taught to pre-K students as part of the standard curriculum, but i'd love to be proven wrong.