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Part 1.

1. Introduction.

The following report looks into the stages of fractions and how they are learned and should be taught in a
classroom environment for children to gain a conceptual understanding. Fractions form the basis of other
mathematical concepts, thus developing fraction skills in essential in a primary mathematics classroom. The
report then looks at a child study, on fractions, that took place with a Year 3 student. The child study
consisted of a diagnostic interview, allowing the tutor to gain a better understanding of what the child
already understood about fractions and any misconceptions they may have acquired, followed by six
tutoring sessions to progress the child’s understanding. The report highlights the content and findings of
the initial diagnostic report and follows on to show the development and understanding of concepts,
subsequently from the activities and discussions in the tutoring sessions.

2. Fractions.

Fractions can be seen as a difficult subject to teach and learn, the concepts behind them are complex, and
teachers need to try and make all the appropriate connections to their students so they can develop a
mature and flexible understanding of fractions. There are three categories of models that exist within
fractions, these are area, length and set of a quantity (Van de Walle, Karp, & Bay-Williams, 2013). Fractions
form the basis of proportional reasoning and help the development of algebra and probability (Clarke,
Roche, Mitchell, 2008). Therefore the importance is high for children to develop a conceptual
understanding of fractions. This can be achieved through developing an understanding of two main
concepts, partitioning, and equivalence. Partitioning refers to the equal sharing out of something, for
example, a cake; the cake was shared equally between the 4 friends. Equivalence refers to the different
representations of the same amount, for example, three-quarters of a chocolate bar is equivalent or the
same as six-eighths of a chocolate bar (Reys et al, 2012). Developing an understanding of equivalent
fractions is crucial (Van de Walle, Karp, & Bay-Williams, 2013) however, children can have difficulties with
equivalence when there is a reliance on computational rules to rename rather than a basis in the fraction
model and the process that develops from it (Booker, 2010).

The Australian curriculum stipulates that children in the early primary years begin their learning journey of
fractions with the understanding the meaning of fractions, as equal parts of a whole or equal part of a set.
They should also be investigating the equivalence of fractions along with ordering fractions using models

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including number lines (Reys et al, 2012). To develop a conceptual understanding, teachers should start the
journey with the simplest meaning and model of fractions; this would be the part-whole meaning with the
region model (Reys et al, 2012). Starting with a shape that students are familiar with and is obvious to
children, such as a rectangle, and having them partition the whole it into equal parts and discuss those
parts with fractional names. This will allow for a strong development of language and symbols relating to
fractions. As children are developing the idea of equal parts, the teacher can begin to introduce words such
as thirds, quarters, fifths and so on, ensuring that they hear the s on the ends of each of the words (Reys et
al, 2012). Teachers should also relate fractions to division, for example, 1/3 is the same as 1 divided by 3,
allowing children to see this relationship can better their understanding of fractions (Clarke, Roche,
Mitchell, 2008). As they develop a deeper understanding of fractions, their understanding for division
subsequently grows (Van Der Walle, 2006).

Children need to understand and work with fractions across many constructs, including parts of a whole,
division and rations (Van de Walle, Karp, & Bay-Williams, 2013). Children need opportunities to work with
hands on manipulatives and include estimating in their learning. Students should be given the opportunity
to not only work with ready-made manipulatives, but also to construct their own allowing a deeper
development of an understanding of the concepts (Clarke, Roche, Mitchell, 2008). The use of number lines
allows students to see how whole numbers, decimals, and fractions all relate, allowing for students to
translate between different representations and develop multiplicative thinking and a conceptual
understating (Clarke, Roche, Mitchell, 2008). Many students reach Year 4 with little developed conceptual
knowledge of fractions; many can relate fractions to pictorial models but fail to understand that these
models can help them to solve problems (Reys et al, 2012). A curriculum that emphasises the teaching of
fractions through a number of different models, such as physical, real world, pictorial, verbal, and symbolic,
can help children to gain a deeper conceptual knowledge and understanding of the meaning of fractions
(Reys et al, 2012). Children need to be given time to understand what fractions are all about and to reason
proportionally, before being moved onto computation, this will allow for them to use and understand
fractions in their everyday life, for example when shopping for good deals (Clarke, Roche, Mitchell, 2008).

Misconceptions can arise from the many interpretations, representations, coding conventions and
misapplying fractions in the teaching of whole numbers (Clarke, Roche, Mitchell, 2008). There are three
meanings of fractions; these are part whole, quotient, and ratio, many teachers only focus on part whole,
creating misconceptions and difficulties for children developing an understanding of fractions. Many upper
primary students, who are having trouble understanding fractions, are usually trying to apply rules by rote
and would benefit in the use of hands-on materials and manipulatives to develop the conceptual

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understanding needed. Materials such as construction paper, counters, fractions bars and pattern blocks
are useful to develop this understanding and can be found in most classrooms (Reys et al, 2012). The
language used when teaching fractions can create misconceptions when a ‘rule’ only works some of the
time, for example when teaching the numerator and denominator. Teaching that the denominator tells you
how many parts the whole has been broken into and the numerator tells you how many of these parts to
take or colour in, only works for fractions between 0-1 and does not allow for improper fractions (Clarke,
Roche, Mitchell, 2008).

Part 2

3. Diagnostic Assessment

A diagnostic assessment was completed with a Year 3 student, Brody, to assess her understanding of
fractions, thus helping the tutor understand the content that would be required to teach. The diagnostic
interview, which allows for teachers to gain an insight in student’s misconceptions (Hodges, Rose, & Hicks,
2012), took place using an interview format from the First Steps in Mathematics (FSiM) – Measurement
Diagnostic resource (Department of Education WA a [DoEWA], 2013). The activities required the use of
hands-on manipulatives and were grouped into the five key understandings as described by DoEWA (2013).
Brody however only completed the first two key understandings, the first one with ease and a conceptual
understanding, however in the second she began to get stressed and was not understanding what was
being asked of her.

The Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority (ACARA) (2018) states that in Year 3 students will model
and represent unit fractions including 1/2, 1/4, 1/3, 1/5, and their multiples to complete whole. Children
should be developing skills to locate unit fraction on a number line, and partition areas, lengths, and sets to
create halves, thirds, quarters and fifths. As tutoring took place at the beginning of the year, Brody had
recently begun Year 3; therefore it would be expected she is only beginning to develop these skills.

Throughout the diagnostic interview, Brody showed a clear understanding that when something is split into
two equal-sized parts it is halved and each part is half the original thing, relating to the DoEWA (2013), key
understanding 1. This was shown through numerous activities that took place with Brody, requiring her to
draw half, halving pieces of paper and splitting collections into half. One of the activities required Brody to
split a set of 12 counters into half, Brody put two piles of six stating that she could halve the set because 12

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is an even number however if there was 11 she would not be able to halve them. This showed the tutor a
clear understanding of Key understanding 1.

The DoEWA (2013) keys understanding 2 requires children to understand that objects and collections can
be partitioned into two or more equal-sized parts and partitioning can be done in different ways. Again
Brody could complete, with understanding in her replies, the activities requiring her to deal with halves.
However, anything further than that Brody showed little understanding and looked confused, beginning to
get stressed. When given a set of 16 counters and asked to split them in all the ways she could think of so
there were none left, Brody split the pile into halves and stated there were no other ways. When shown a
picture with 1/3 shaded in and asked how much of the shape was shaded she replied one.

The diagnostic interview showed that, although Brody had an understanding of halves, she did not have
any further understanding of fractions and remained in level 2 of the DoEWA (2013) levels of achievement.
To progress to a level 3, Brody would need to gain an understanding of quarters and it’s meaning and
splitting quantities into fair shares beyond halves (DoEWA, 2013). Brody was at a satisfactory level for the
beginning of Year 3 in regards to the Australian Curriculum, however, to progress her knowledge it was
decided to start the tutoring lessons in key understanding 2 (DoEWA, 2013) with activities dealing with
partitioning into any number of parts. Developing on key understanding 2 would subsequently help Brody
with an understanding of key understanding 5, the development of understanding operations and key
understanding 3, calculate, linking to multiplication and division (DoEWA, 2013).

4. Tutoring Sessions.

After completion of the diagnostic interview, it was clear that Brody needed to develop skills and
understanding from DoEWA (2013) key understanding 2, in order to progress a conceptual understanding
and develop within the Australian curriculum. When developing learning experiences for students, it is
important to connect the activities to their current understandings and knowledge, rather than their
current year level (DoEWA, 2013). It was important throughout the tutoring session to use concrete
materials and manipulatives to relate the concepts to the real world, enabling heightened conceptual
understanding, motivation to learn the concepts being taught, and improved ability to apply the knowledge
learnt to the real world (Bartolini Bussi, Taimina, & Isoda, 2009, Van Der Walle, 2006, Mills, 2011).
Therefore throughout the lessons, real-life items such as food and play dough were used, enabling Brody to
relate and compare fractions in a real-life sense. A series of 6 tutoring sessions took place with Brody,
beginning with activities involving partitioning. Throughout the lessons an ‘I do, we do, you do’ teaching

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model was used where ever possible, enabling Brody to feel supported before being expected to do things
on her own (Killian, 2015).

4.1 Splitting wholes.

For Brody to progress through key understanding 2, she needed to become flexible in partitioning beyond
halves, she also needed to develop an understanding that when splitting a whole into equal parts all of the
whole needs to be completely used and the more shares a collection is split into, the smaller the share is
(DoEWA, 2013). The first two of the activities, segments and sharing collections (DoEWA, 2013), were
successful in developing or showing a previous understanding of partitioning into any number of parts.
Brody was able to partition the collections into numerous different amounts and explain, for example, that
8 pieces of mandarin could not be shared into 6 people equally because “there would be 2 pieces left over
and it would not be fair to give two people 2 extra pieces each”. This showed that Brody understood that
when splitting a whole into parts, the entire whole needed to be used up (DoEWA, 2013). When the
collections were divided into quarters and Brody was asked what fraction each pile was, Brody correctly
named them quarters and stated: “4 quarters made a whole”. Brody also showed an understanding of the
more shares something is split into the smaller each share is (DoEWA, 2013) through stating how many
pieces of mandarin each person was going to get when dividing between different amounts of people, “If
there were 2 people they would get 4 pieces each, if there were 4 people they would get 2 pieces each”.
These activities suggested that during the diagnostic Brody did not understand what was being asked of
her, however, when presented with further hands-on activities showed a deeper understanding of key
understanding 2 (DoEWA, 2013) than initially thought, thus the tutor decided to move on.

4. 2 Equals may look different.

Although Brody showed the above understanding, as with some children, she may not understand that
equal parts may look different but may still be equal in size (DoEWA, 2013). Therefore activities involving
Brody proving that pieces are the same size, such as making a sandwich (DoEWA, 2013), by cutting and
rearranging paper, took place in the to ensure this understanding. During the activities, it became clear that
Brody believed that for something to be equal it needed to look the same. This was shown when cutting a
square piece of paper into 4 equal parts, and then thinking of another way this could be done. Brody took
care to ensure the paper was cut into equal parts, by folding it to make equal pieces (ACARA, 2018), and
was able to think of 2 different ways to do this. However, indicated that it would not be “fair” to give her

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the triangle quarter and the tutor the square quarter because they were different sizes. Brody then cut up
and rearranged the triangle to see that, in fact, it was the same size. However, at a later date, Brody was
shown 2 equal sized pieces of paper and then shown one of these cut in half. When asked if it would be fair
for 1 person to the whole piece of paper and another to get 2 halves, Brody said no it wouldn’t because 1
person would be getting 2. It was decided that using paper as a representation for food was not working,
thus Brody assisted in making fairy bread, cutting it in different ways for her siblings and talking about
whether they were getting the same amount although they looked differently. Play dough was used to
assist in developing this understanding as well. Brody created two equal halves of play dough, through
weight, and made different models with each (DoEWA, 2013). It was established in the beginning, when
making the dough into balls and comparing the weight that they were equal halves. These hands-on
activities, using real-world manipulatives, proved to show progression in Brody’s understanding, one
example of this was during the playdough activity. Brody stated that even though the two parts looked
differently they were still equal in size because all the dough was still there and they still weighed the same
as each other.

Mills (2011) states that finding suitable real-world models that refer to fractions is often difficult, and
suggests using the human body, particularly the arms, to represent whole, halves and quarters. Although
this method can be problematic for children, who like Brody, are unable to make the connections that
pieces must be equal but don’t have to look the same when making a whole. This enables children
individually and in groups to see different representations of these fractions. To begin with the activity was
proving to be tough for Brody to understand, this was over come with measuring and marking out the two
halves of the arms, allowing for Brody to see that although the two halves looked different they were equal
in size. Brody enjoyed this activity and enabled her to see a different perspective of fractions and real-life
representations.

5. Future planning.

The completion of the six tutoring sessions saw Brody understanding that when splitting a whole into parts
all of the whole needs to be used, the more shares something is split into the smaller each share is, and
equal parts need not look alike (DoEWA, 2013). The next reasonable step for Brody, based on the tutoring
sessions outcomes would be for her to continue to be exposed to portioning flexibly, whilst also working on
linking the act of sharing equal portions with the fractional language associated, such as halves, quarters,
thirds and fifths to collections and using fractional words correctly when describing and comparing things,
the emphasis being on the meaning of fraction words rather than the symbolic form (DoEWA, 2013). It

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would also be recommended that Brody begins describing and comparing these fractions and counting
forwards in simple fractional amounts. Once Brody has become comfortable in using the fraction words,
she can begin to learn to use the symbolic conventions (DoEWA, 2013).

The above recommendations should be done with hands-on, real-life manipulatives and can be done with
beginning activities involving Btody, in a group, sharing out materials and naming them using fractional
language, encouraging them to refer to the whole. Another activity would involve Brody modelling
different items around the home or classroom in different fractions, such as a third. She can then label each
of these with the word, third along with the numeral 1/3. As Brody becomes more efficient with these
activities she can move onto more progressive activities, such as, in a pair sort a range of ‘whole’ materials
into a given unit fraction and than recording in pictures and words how they did this. She should also be
encouraged in everyday activities to use fractional language, outside of the maths classroom.

6. Conclusion.

Fractions are often seen as a hard subject to teach and learn, however, it is important to ensure children
develop a conceptual understanding of each of the concepts as they form the basis of proportional
reasoning and help develop algebra and probability concepts. The diagnostic interview that took place, one
on one with Brody, allowed for the tutor to gain a full understanding of what was clearly understood and
what concepts needed further attention. Throughout the tutoring sessions, questions were repeatedly
asked of Brody to enable the tutor to modify the future tutoring sessions when needed. It became clear
that during the diagnostic interview some prior knowledge had been missed, therefore the program was
changed to suit Brody’s needs progressing her further through the fractions concepts. Through the
development of knowledge in the tutoring sessions that took place, Brody should be better equipped to
work with fractions in both the classroom and real world with greater confidence.

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References

Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority (ACARA) (2018). Mathematics.

Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/mathematics/

Booker, G. (2010). Teaching Primary Mathematics. Pearson Australia. Frenchs

Forest. NSW 2086.

Clarke, D., Roche, A., & Mitchell, A. (2008). Ten practical tips for making fractions
come alive and make sense. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School Retrieved from
https://lms.curtin.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-5153605-dt-content-rid-
28636043_1/courses/2018_1_EDPR4000_V2_L1_A1_INT_637331/2018_1_EDPR4000_V2_L1_A1_I
NT_637331_ImportedContent_20180117114556/CLARKE_ROCHE_MITCHELL_%20Fractions_MTMS
.pdf

Department of Education Western Australia (2013). Number Book 1.

Retrieved from
http://det.wa.edu.au/stepsresources/detcms/navigation/first-steps-mathematics/

Hodges, T. E., Rose, T. D., & Hicks, A. D. (2012). Interviews as RtI Tools. Teaching Children Mathematics,
19(1), 30. http://doi.org/10.5951/teacchilmath.19.1.0030

Killian, S. (2015). The I do, we do, you do model explained. Retrieved from

http://www.evidencebasedteaching.org.au/the-i-do-we-do-you-do-model-explained/

Mills, J. (2011). Body fractions: A physical approach to fraction learning. Australian

Primary Mathematics Classroom, 16(2), 17–22. Retrieved
from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ936533.pdf

Reys, R.E., Lindquist, M.M., Lambdin, D.V., Smith, M.L., Rogers, A., Falle, J., …
Bennett, S.(2012). Helping children learn mathematics. (1st Australian edition). John Wiley & Sons
Australia: Milton, Qld.

Van Der Wall, J.A. (2006). Teaching student centred mathematics. Retrieved from

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https://link.library.curtin.edu.au/ereserve/DC60272776/0?display=1

Van de Walle, J., Karp, K.S., & Bay-Williams, J.M. (2013). Elementary and middle
school mathematics: Teaching developmentally (8th. Ed.). Boston: Pearson. (p. 290)

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Appendices

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