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How to Teach Division Meanings to Fourth Grade Students

Division is a basic arithmetic operation that is fundamental in more advanced math such as algebra. Giving fourth grade students a strong grasp of the concept of division is critical in their understanding of future math topics. For example, division problems usually lead to the introduction of fractions because dividing integers often results in a remainder. Remainders are fractions of the divisor and must be expressed as ratios such as 1/3. Explaining the meaning behind the operation is an important step in a student's intuitive understanding of the process.

Instructions

    • 1

      Explain the purpose of division to put it into context of another arithmetic operation: multiplication. Division is the inverse of multiplication. It "undoes" the operation of multiplying. For example, (60 / 20) = 3 because (20 * 3) = 60.

    • 2

      Identify and define the terms of a division problem. The process of division seeks to find the number of times a number called the divisor "fits into" another number called the dividend. The result of the operation is called the quotient. For example, for the equation (60 / 20) = 3, 60 is the divident, 20 is the divisor, and 3 is the quotient.

    • 3

      Discuss the fact that the quotient is not always a whole number because sometimes the divisor does not completely "fit" into the dividend a whole number of times. For example, for the equation (60 / 22) = 2.72, the divisor almost fits into 60 three times, but not quite. The divisor fits 2 whole times plus an additional 0.72 times. This is equivalent to saying that 22 factors into 60 twice with a remainder of (0.72 * 22) = 15.84 = 16. The discrepancy is due to the rounding of 0.72.

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