Brickwedde (2011) found that language played an important role in helping primary-school students make the shift to multiplicative thinking. Students who could express multiplicative ideas in speech and who could correct or identify mistakes in other students’ explanations achieved a more sophisticated level of multiplicative understanding.
Support students to know and recognise language related to multiplicative problems, for example: equal groups, equal shares, doubling, halving, trebling, thirding, factors.