Here is a one-metre strip of paper, split into ten equal parts, the way a baker might mark a long loaf into ten fair slices.

We have a name for one whole and we have a name for one half. But what shall we call just one of these ten equal parts of the whole strip?

This is the same whole loaf as our paper strip, now shown as ten equal sticks on a place-value mat. Watch which sticks are shaded each time, and read the amount both as tenths and as a decimal.

Now we build tenths together on the place-value mat, in this order: 0.2, then 0.5, then 0.8, and finally 0.9. For each one, one pupil taps the sticks at the board while the whole class joins in by saying the two names aloud together: first the words, like two tenths, then the decimal, zero point two.