Explaining Division of Fractions
Date: 08/11/99 at 16:26:25
From: Lee Werling
Subject: Tutoring division of fractions
My wife and I are helping some neighbor kids prepare for 6th grade.
Since they will be entering an advanced program in science and math,
those are the areas we're concentrating on. In a review of fractions,
I stumbled when I could not come up with a practical explanation of
how division of fractions works. Other than stating the rule about
inverting the second fraction and multiplying to get the correct
answer, I could not give a concrete example to help them understand
the concept. For example, in the simple problem of 1/2 divided by 1/2,
the correct answer is 1. However, I was unable to explain why division
using whole numbers results in a smaller amount, but dividing by
fractions produces an answer greater than what you started with. I
hope I am clear. The kids left a few moments ago and my brain still
feels like mush.
Thanks for any assistance you can provide.
Sincerely,
Lee Werling