The leading zero before a decimal point assists users in recognizing decimal numbers less than one. Without the leading zero a cursory look at a series of digits could easily overlook the small ...

Speaker: Not all numbers are whole numbers. Decimals are numbers that are between two whole numbers. So 1.4 is between 1 and 2. A decimal that starts with a 0 before the decimal point is less than 1.

A KS2 Maths article for Year 5 on how to multiply decimals by 10, 100 and 1000 using a place value chart.