The choice of vocabulary we use to describe mathematical concepts matters now ... and later.  Authors Karen Karp, Barbara Dougherty and Sarah Bush underscore the importance of building cohesion across grade-levels in their book The Math Pact: Achieving Instructional Coherence Within and Across Grades (Corwin, 2021). They highlight this point when using the word reduce, as in reducing fractions. "Somewhere along the way, you probably recognized that reducing is not what is actually happening. The fractions are not getting smaller or going on a diet; they are being written in an equivalent, simplified way. This language causes students to misunderstand the concept - especially as they link the word reduce to more conversational language (p. 19).  By intentionally analyzing the language of math, and how its terms and symbols are discussed across tier one and intervention, systems can build cohesiveness that leads to greater conceptual understanding of mathematics as students progress from grade-to-grade from PreK to Grade 12.

Source: Karp, Dougherty & Bush (2021). The Math Pact: Achieving Instructional Coherence Within and Across Grades. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.