It’s time to divide! Introducing a new math skill can be intimidating, but implementing effective division strategies can have your students diving into this new lesson with excitement and confidence!
Creating a lesson plan that incorporates various teaching methods including visual, hands-on activities will help your students build a solid foundation and understanding of the concept of division. So, let’s break down four go-to strategies that will support your students as they learn this new math skill!
By using a variety of methods that are engaging and interactive you can help to make learning this new skill fun and accessible for all of your students! Each strategy below offers students a “new” way to solve the problem, showing them that the main goal of dividing is simply to see how many equal groups are formed or how many are in each group when sharing fairly.
Teaching division using fact families helps students to identify and write sets of related subtraction equations, as well as gain an understanding of the relationship between multiplication and division.
This method does require a bit of a mental leap, but it promotes and builds on students’ problem-solving skills and analytical thinking – and can actually reduce memorization by nearly 75% as students are learning multiple facts at once!
An interactive tool, number lines, can help to enhance your students’ understanding of division, and help students make connections between the dividend and divisor.
This strategy has the students break down the division problem – starting with the dividend and then moving towards the left side of the number line as many spaces as the divisor, until they reach zero.
For the 15/5 example, the students would represent three groups of 5 equal intervals – starting at 15 and “jumping” backwards 5 places, 3 times on the number line.
As you teach division, the repeated subtraction strategy may be the easiest process for them to understand.
This method is simply subtracting equal groups, or the same number repeatedly from another larger number until the remainder is zero, or smaller than the number being subtracted.
This strategy will help in developing a strong foundation for the overall concept of division.
A detailed visual representation of a math problem, arrays allow students to create an interactive display as they work to find the quotient.
This strategy has students break down the problem by using rows – representing the number of groups, and columns – representing the number in each group.
As students identify the groupings, they can create an array to solve for the problem.
Teacher Tip: Use a real life array (like an egg carton or muffin tin) to introduce this method to help your students best understand the concept
Looking for an an easy prep resource that follows the Common Core Standards? Check out this Division Strategies resource that’s jam packed with ink-friendly printables that will help your students learn and apply the four different strategies for division problems!
And who doesn’t love a good FREEBIE? The Strategy Posters are the perfect reference for students when they’re learning the different ways to divide!
