Fractions become much easier to add when they are spoken as counting words rather than read as symbol pairs.
- Count in part-names. "Two fifths plus one fifth" sounds exactly like "two apples plus one apple" — students hear that the answer must be "three fifths", never "three tenths". Chorus-count in fifths, sixths and eighths as a warm-up.
- Verbalise the rule as a chant: "Same? Count. Different? Rename!" — students say it before every question in We Do.
- Think-aloud pairs. Partner A solves a related-denominator question while narrating every decision ("Six is a multiple of three, so I rename the third..."); Partner B may only ask questions, then they swap. Explaining the renaming aloud is itself the success criterion.
- Error interviews. Read out a wrong answer ("I think seven eighths take away one quarter is six fourths") and have students explain, in words only and without writing, what went wrong.