How Do You Compare Decimals On A Number Line?
Decimals can be difficult for students to grasp, so exposing them to graphical representations early on can help them understand intuitively. They are familiar with the number line by the time they see decimals. This background provides an excellent stepping stone to help them make comparisons between decimals. Start off with what the students are familiar with. Draw out a number line from 0 to 10 on the chalkboard, but don’t label the marks from 1 through 9. Instead let the students do this, copying the number line onto their papers and filling itout. They should have no problem, and this gets them thinking in terms of breaking up a stretch of the number line into 10 units. Draw a number line from 0 to 1, with demarcations for 0.1 to 0.9, but again without the labels. Explain that you are essentially “magnifying” the length of the earlier number line for them, to see the detail of the stretch from 0 to 1. Ask the students to again label the marks from 0 to 1. Repeat the above strategy
