Five Tips to Help Your Child Learn Fractions

By Faith Kaltenbach

For a parent whose child is struggling with math, it is often hard to know where to begin and can be frustrating for both the child and the parent. There is no clear set of rules when it comes to teaching a child to work with fractions because every child learns differently. There are however some tips and tricks to helping them that seem to be helpful for all children struggling in this area of mathematical study. When teaching fractions it is very important to make the process visual and any math teacher could easily offer at least 5 tips on how to help you child understand fractions. Being able to visualize the fraction has proven to be beneficial in the teaching process for years. Here are a few ways to help you child visualize and understand fractions at home.

Tips on how to help you child understand fractions:

1. Draw. Use familiar shapes (most usually and helpful here would be circles) to show your child how things are divided into pieces (this is after all, what a fraction is).

2. Start small. Don't try to jump right in to dividing and multiplying fractions or with fractions that are too large to be drawn out easily.

3. Use items around the home that your child is familiar with and likes (such as pizza or cookies) to help with the process of visualization. For example: A pizza cut into 8 slices = 8/8. If you subtract 4 pieces from the pizza the child will be left with 4/8 or 1/2. With this you have shown your child not only how to subtract a fraction but also how to reduce it.

4. Make it tactile. Use a dollar, penny, dime, nickel, and quarter to teach your child how each of these familiar items is easily converted into the parts (or fractions) that make up a dollar. Example: 1/100, 5/100 or 1/20, 1/ 10/100 or 1/10, 25/100 or 1/4. This provides the child with an example they can relate to their life.

5. Terminology. It is important that your child understand all parts of a fraction... their names and where they are in the fraction. The denominator is the bottom of the fraction and begins with "d" like the word down.

Equivalent fractions represent the same amount of the pizza so they are equal. A whole number represents the whole pizza whereas a fraction is just a small piece. An improper fraction's numerator is bigger than its denominator and could "tip over." A mixed number is two different things mixed together: A fraction and a whole number. It is very important that your child understand all parts of a fraction before they begin working with them.

If your child is struggling with the process of learning fractions do some research and learn the best ways to help. Talk to their teacher and ask his/her advice and most importantly, don't give up or get frustrated with your child. They are frustrated enough with themselves and if your frustration is added, it can make the learning process almost impossible.

The author has spent a lot of time researching about math, fractions and other related topics. For tools and more information, visithttp://fractioncalc.net/ to access online tools such as adding fractions calculator, which can help you teach your child better.