Hi JoJo,
Dk if this will help but when my DS learned multiplication by learning skip counting 1st,
3,6,9 reall 3+3+3 etc.
He called it "taken" for a long time.
3*3 he would say "3 taken 3 times".
He told me it was just additon.
Dk if that will help any.
And then he did division backwards also saying he would doing addition 6/2 how many 2 added to get 6.