Key Ideas And Strategies Underpin The Use Of Fractions In Children

Fractions are often seen by teachers as difficult to teach in the classroom and in turn difficult for children to understand how and why we use them. Although this is the case, it should be noted that fractions underpin a child’s ability to develop proportional reasoning and helps promote further progress in future mathematical studies (Clarke, Roche & Mitchell, 2008). This highlights the need for a child to be proficient in fractions and for their teacher to also be able to progress a child’s learning with engaging and appropriate activities. Several key ideas and strategies underpin the development of a child’s learning of fractions.

One such key idea of fractions is the notion of partitioning. Department of Education (2013) First Steps in

Booker, Bond, Sparrow and Swan (2004) place a large importance on ensuring correct language when teaching fractions is used from an early age and progressively used throughout their education. Children take a while to get used to the language used to describe fractions, as a certain number can have several names, for example; a half is equal to 5 tenths, 50%, 2 fourths etc (Van de Walle, Lovin, Karp, & Bay-Williams, 2014). Children often have difficulties reading and writing fraction equations as they are not exposed to the language sufficiently, however, explicit language teaching allows for a far greater improvement in the process (Booker et al., 2004). With this in mind, introducing the correct language and maintaining that language when teaching fractions is imperative to a child’s conceptual understanding and future learning. Children often misconceive partitioning of a whole into several parts as a half, when it may be thirds or fourths due to the lack of exposure to correct terminology (Van de Walle, Lovin, Karp, & Bay-Williams, 2014). This is echoed by Reys et al. (2012), who explain that the ‘s’ needs to be heavily emphasised to represent the fraction when educators ask questions such as ‘How many fifths make a whole?’ and ‘How many thirds make up a whole?’. This type of questioning and discussions, along with constantly referring

Department of Education (2013) First Steps in Mathematics acknowledges that students are required to compare and order fractions in order to move forward in their mathematical learning. A key component to understanding fractions is that children need to understand that fractions are numbers and can be ordered, added, subtracted, multiplied and divided (Reys et al., 2012). Children learning equivalent fractions and ordering have multiple and engaging resources to help assist their learning. One such activity as highlighted by Reys et al. (2012) is as simple as just paper folding. Have the student fold their piece of paper into thirds and to shade two-thirds of the paper with pencil. Once they have completed this step, ask them to fold the paper lengthways in half creating six squares where now four of the six squares will be shaded. This can then be discussed with the class that both ways, two thirds and then four sixths, are the same which creates an equivalent. Another successful tool when teaching fractions and comparing and ordering them is the use of number lines. Expressing to children that fractions are numbers and using number lines to illustrate this helps for a greater conceptual understanding (Clarke, Roche & Mitchell, 2008). Number lines allow a child to visually distribute the fractions along the line to understand how they relate to a whole and this comparing and ordering is vital for fraction