How To Do Fractions
Without all those terrifying words like 'Common Denominator'
It is my experience that we should always confront our fears. They hold us back and nowhere is this more evident than in education. We tend to defeat ourselves in our chosen study subjects because we get frightened by the terminology... long words that we just don't understand. Long words that turn us off the subject before we've even turned on to it. I am a Teacher of Mathematics and one such topic of arithmetic is 'fractions' which used to involve finding the lowest common denominator amongst other scary things and if you are only a few years old, it can scar you for life and become an impenetrable block to the learning process.
Long, long ago, when I was at my elementary school I remember being completely being bamboozled by such nasty words. They certainly weren’t conducive to any of us learning the subject. It was a nightmare. Later, at my second school, a local Grammar School which you attained purely my examination and merit, I sat my Elementary Mathematics exam twice and failed… not because I couldn’t do the math but because I had run out of time. The first thing printed on the exam paper (after the title of the exam) was ‘All candidates must answer all eight questions. I ran out of time after seven questions and failed because I hadn’t done them all. So, I re-sat the exam and ran out of time again. I failed for the same reason, The third time, I passed with nearly a 100% mark. Was I any better at Math? Of course not. So what was my secret? Allocating an amount of time per question leaving myself time to spare to finish off those questions that I ran out of time on. Was my Math any better? No, but my time management was. It was an important lesson.
Between my schooldays in the 1950’s and 60’s and now, teachers have learn’t how to teach. The Teaching Profession has realised that it is not so much the wrong way or the right way to do things, it is the way that works for the individual child or adult. People are different and they learn in different ways. It is up to their teacher to know several different ways of solving mathematical problems. There is no correct way, just the way that works for the individual and this might well vary from individual to individual. And so it is with this method of doing fractions. Instead of having to master the meaning of those horrible words, the pupil or student just has to follow a simple set of instructions. Do this; do that and now do the other. Job done. Correct answer, perfect! I wish it were my method nut it is not and I don’t believe that it belongs to the person who taught it to me. It’s just a simple method that wors and one by which anyone can master fractions within an hour by following a very simple method. This method is ideal for home schoolers and will help you get to grips with fractions.
In the book How To Do Fractions I will show you how to master fractions... addition, subtraction, multiplication and division without using any bad language or nasty long words at all. The method is visual and the number skills, minimal, but it works and soon you will be mastering fractions. The method is textual but mainly visual. Being able to do something like fractions is confidence building!!!
"I wish I'd been taught this when I was at Grade School!" John F.
"If I'd known this then.., my life would have been so different" Grace Johnson
"So simple when you know how!"