The latter. My daughter actually learned it because we mixed different learning methods early on (we don't anymore, it confused her), but you have to admit that

The latter. My daughter actually learned it because we mixed different learning methods early on (we don't anymore, it confused her), but you have to admit that writing numbers greater than 10 kinda involves multiplication (by powers of ten, but still), so it makes sense to learn multiplication first. Negative numbers were seen while learning addition / subtraction (the concept was basically adding a negative number), which made a lot of sense too.