Some of these words are used imprecisely outside of mathematics. Multiplication − multiply, times, product, lots of, groups of, repeated additionĭivision − sharing, divided by, repeated subtraction There is a great deal of vocabulary related to the concepts of multiplication and division. Division with remainder is a fundamental idea in electronic security and cryptography. As such, multiplication provides an early link between arithmetic and geometry.įluency with division is essential in many later topics and division is central to the calculations of ratios, proportions, percentages and slopes. The natural geometric model of multiplication as rectangular area leads to applications in measurement. For example, it is much quicker to calculate 6 × 27 by multiplication than by repeated addition.įluency with multiplication reduces the cognitive load in learning later topics such as division. When there are many collections of the same size, addition is not the most efficient means of calculating the total number of objects. What is the total length of wire that Henry has?ĭivision answers questions such as: 1 How many apples will each friend get if four friends share 12 apples equallyĢ If twenty pens are shared between seven children how many does each child receive, and how many are left over?Īddition is a useful strategy for calculating ‘how many’ when two or more collections of objects are combined. How many chocolates did Judy have?Ģ Henry has 3 rolls of wire. Multiplication answers questions such as: 1 Judy brought 3 boxes of chocolates. Some division problems arise when we try to break up a quantity into groups of equal size and when we try to undo multiplications. Arrays are a good way to illustrate this. Multiplicative situations arise when finding a total of a number of collections or measurements of equal size. One way of thinking of multiplication is as repeated addition.

What multiplies to 3 and adds to 2