Fraction word problems, step by step
Once a child can add and subtract fractions, the next question is when to.
How much juice does Ana need in all?
- Read it through once. Grabbing the numbers on the first read means choosing an operation before you know the story, and that choice is the only hard part of a word problem.
- Now the numbers: 4/6 and 3/6. Finding them is not the same as knowing what to do with them — that comes next, and it comes from the story rather than from the numbers.
- Parts of the same whole, put together — the pieces are already the same size, so they simply count up. So this one is an addition: 4/6 + 3/6.
- 4/6 + 3/6 = 1 1/6 cups. And answer the question that was ASKED — "How much juice does Ana need in all?" — in cups, because the sum on its own is not yet an answer.
How it works.
- 01
Read it through once. Grabbing the numbers on the first read means choosing an operation before you know the story, and that choice is the only hard part of a word problem.
- 02
Now the numbers: 4/6 and 3/6. Finding them is not the same as knowing what to do with them — that comes next, and it comes from the story rather than from the numbers.
- 03
Parts of the same whole, put together — the pieces are already the same size, so they simply count up. So this one is an addition: 4/6 + 3/6.
- 04
4/6 + 3/6 = 1 1/6 cups. And answer the question that was ASKED — "How much juice does Ana need in all?" — in cups, because the sum on its own is not yet an answer.