Why decimal notation?
Our multimedia resource will collect together a large array of information about teaching decimal notation. This topic has been chosen because it is an important aspect of numeracy and because many students in school have difficulty with it. Our society uses metric measures, so that decimal notation is widely used. An understanding of decimals is also critical in using a calculator. For example, to apportion a weekly cost or amount of 100 units equally among 7 days involves dividing 100 by 7. A calculator display will give 14.285714. We have evidence that many people do not understand how large the decimal part of such a number is. Students learn to interpret the size of decimal numbers from about Grade 4 onwards. About 25% of grade 4 students learn it quite quickly, however, about 25% of Year 10 students have not yet mastered this important concept (Moloney and Stacey, 1995) There are a variety of common errors. Many primary students are misled by the length of the decimal part. They
