A Key to Success for ALL with Fractions, Decimals, Percents

Having trouble teaching fractions, decimals, and percents? This book is your answer. It includes self-teaching, concrete materials students use to master these critical concepts. Success with fractions, decimals, and percent prepares students for success with high-stakes tests, "No Child Left Behind” and more mathematics. State assessment documents the results.  

This mathematics book, written by Dr. Dorothy Strong, features hands-on-materials students manipulate to build concrete models for fractions, decimals, and percents. Success with fractions, decimals, and percent prepares students to meet the mathematics achievement challenges of "No Child Left Behind” and relates high-stakes-tests. Fractions, decimals, and percents are also key to success with higher mathematics.

The hands-on-materials students use are called “Transparent Area Modules^TM (TAM^TM)”. “Transparent Area Modules^TM are built on the"Properties of One Whole." One whole is the key to all that we do with fractions, decimals, and percents. As students understand and apply "one Whole" and Transparent Area Modules^TM to fractions, decimals, and percents, they prepare for success with problem solving and higher level mathematics.

Students use the Transparent Area Modules^TM to represent meaning and operations of fractions, decimals, and percents. With these clear, plastic Transparent Area Modules^TM in hand, students get to know the mysteries of fractions, decimals, and percents. They experience and enjoy success with learning. They manipulate the Transparent Area Modules^TM to represent many names for fractions, decimals, and percents with their own hands, see operations with fractions, decimals, and percents happen with their own eyes. Thus, they attach meaning to fractions, decimals, and percents.  Connecting meaning to fractions, decimals, and percents is vital to being prepared to learn more mathematics, problem solving, as well as success on high stakes tests.

Book Content

Each book contains fifty-two (52) red and blue Transparent Area Modules^TM printed on clear see-through plastic. Students place Transparent Area Modules^TM on top of each other to represent meaning, renaming, and operations with fractions, decimals, and percents. Colorful pages of step-by-step directions and problems guide students as they manipulate the Transparent Area Modules^TM to be sure that they understand renaming and operating with fractions, decimals, and percents, and can use them in problem solving.

Each lesson includes:

1.       A problem to be solved.

2.       Mathematics questions related to the problem.

3.       The pages where you will find the TAM^TM to use with the problem.

4.       What they should know about using TAM^TM to model the problem.

5.       Sample Problems

6.       Procedures for using TAM^TM to model the solution.

7.       Practice problems

8.       Relationship of TAM^TM to traditional methods

9.       Answers to the mathematics questions asked.

10.    Communication answers in equations