Math
How to Help Your Student With Decimals
Decimals trip students up right after fractions, and the two are deeply connected. Most mistakes come from a shaky sense of place value, not the math itself.
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Students often treat decimals like whole numbers and forget place value, so 0.5 and 0.05 look the same to them. Line-up errors in adding and multiplying follow from there.
What you can do at home
- Anchor it in money. 50 cents versus 5 cents makes place value obvious.
- Line up the decimal points when adding and subtracting, every time.
- Show that a decimal is just another way to write a fraction (0.5 = 1/2).
- Fix fractions first if they are shaky. Decimals build right on top of them.
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