Feedback on Fractions

1) Identifying whether a fraction or a part is required.

Some students have difficulty identifying what the question wants, whether a part or a fraction. For example, if the question has a statement like" ____________of the figure is shaded." , this requires pupils to write a fraction; meaning there should be a numerator and denominator.

However, for questions which require a number for an answer, the questions will have the word pieces/parts in them for example
" ________ parts of the figure is shaded?"
(Refer to examples below)

Pupils wrote the numbers instead of fractions.











 














2) Unit Fractions

Unit fractions are fractions with 1 as their numerators. For example one- fifth, one quarter, one - half.

When comparing unit fractions, students can use this statement to guide them. "The larger the denominator,the smaller the unit fraction." Another translation will be "the more people sharing a cake, the smaller the portion each person will receive."

(taken from http://www.freewebs.com/workstattion/MATH/fractions/activities.htm)

From the figure above, one can see that the larger the denominator,

the smaller the portion of one unit is

3) Fractions that make a whole

From the example given (refer to picture below), the student is unable to see that 1 whole is actually the full fraction, in this case, 4/4. In order to get the fraction for the whole, one can retrieve the information by looking at the denominator of the other fraction given.

Therefore, the answer should be 1/4 and 3/4 make 1 whole (4/4).

 That's all!