Learning Fractions is a Major Part of Middle School Math Problems

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A child who does not understand fractions when he encounters them in his 5th grade math problems or 6th grade math problems, will probably also have trouble with fractions operations in higher math like algebra and trigonometry.

It is vital that your child gain proficiency at solving problems using the fractional operations of adding fractions, subtracting fractions, multiplying fractions and dividing fractions.

Mastering these applications of fractions is not just for the sake of gaining educational skills, but, even more critical, facility with fractions is an important life skill! We use fractions for so many everyday situations like: baking and cooking, tallying up hours and minutes worked for pay, sharing a sum of money or a box of cookies equally among friends or siblings, calculating discounts for sale prices, etc.

If you find your child struggling to understand and complete fractions homework, I would recommend you sit and do the homework with your child for a few days and see if you can diagnose the problem.

You should assess the following issues:

• Does the child have mastery of the prerequisite math knowledge?
• Does your child understand understand what the numerator and denominator represent?
• Is your child's teacher even fully competent to explain and instruct on this topic?

Fourth, fifth and sixth graders who need home-based reinforcment of fractions skills would do well to pick up Math Practice Simplified

A great online resource for detailed fractions lessons for all fraction operations, is www.homeschoolmath.net.

Using Money to Teach Fractions
Coinage is a great way to give concrete examples to aid learning fractions and also whole numbers. A dollar is an example of a whole unit. We can build a dollar using many different equal fractions.

We can show how ten dimes make up one dollar, so each dime equals 1/10 of a dollar, pennies are hundredths of a dollar, but tenths of a dime. Nickels are 20ths of dollars, but halves of a dime.

To master basic understanding of how fractions can add up to one whole, (two halves, four fourths, etc), I have given my own children a set of Learning Resources® Rainbow Fraction® Tiles which they all love and fight for turns to play with.

It's amazing to watch even my five-year-old son align 2/4 (2 fourths) and 8/16 (8 sixteenths) to concretly grasp the concept of fractional equivalencies. Learning fractions is much easier when good fractions manipulatives are part of the instruction. This helps children better visualize the concepts they're trying to learn.

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