In today’s rapidly changing world, it cannot be denied that for an individual to be competent in mathematics their ability to
compute fluently is vital (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2000). In the primary level, the basic computations are
addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The Malaysian National Mathematics Curriculum for primary schools also
place great emphases on mastering these basic computing skills (Ministry of Education, 2003). Despite this emphasis in the
National Curriculum, many teachers’ experience and my experience is that there are pupils who never master these basic skills in
school. My most recent encounter was with a class of Year 4 pupils who were unable to do long multiplication problems not
because the algorithm was confusing but because they could not recall their six, seven, eight and nine times tables (see Figure 1)