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I sat in on a session at AMTNYS (Association of Mathematics Teachers of New York State) a few weeks back that was all about using hands-on tools to teach fractions to middle schoolers.
I went in expecting to learn about advanced models or next-level strategies that would show where fifth graders are headed. Instead, I found something totally different.
What Manipulatives are Being Used in Middle School to Teach Fractions?
The presenter was using pattern blocks and fraction bars to explore comparison, addition, subtraction, equivalent fractions, multiplication, and division.
Those are elementary skills! But middle school teachers in the room were lamenting that their students know a bunch of rules but have very little understanding of how fractions actually work. This is not okay! We can’t have the purpose of a middle school fractions presentation be a collection of strategies for re-teaching elementary math. We need to do better at the elementary level!
So what’s the implication for elementary teachers?
The Implication for Elementary School Math Teachers
In the upper grade levels, there is such pressure to get kids ready for middle school. “They are going to need to know how to compare. Teach them the butterfly so that at the end of the day they know how to do it!” But that’s not the reality that middle school teachers are asking for.
Middle school teachers are asking for students who understand. Students who understand what common denominators are and why they are useful. Students who can use benchmark numbers to reason about fractions. Students who understand that fraction operations might function differently than you would expect with whole numbers. Students who can make sense of fractions because fractions have meaning to them!
One middle school teacher remarked “Students coming to us knowing rules about fractions and very little about fractions themselves.”
The Next Step in Elementary Fractions Instruction
If you’re knee-deep in fraction lessons right now, keep leaning into visual models and conceptual understanding. Don’t fall for the message that “kids need to know how to get the answer” because, at the end of the day, that is NOT what will serve them in the grade levels ahead!
To me, this is a message that actually lets me take a sigh of relief. If you are engaging in meaning making instruction that causes your students to understand fractions the “algorithm” is much less important- you don’t need to shift gears and walk in that direction!
Wondering about exactly what strategies you can use and what hands-on and representational models might support your students? I gathered a list of my fractions blog posts below that will give you strategies you can implement immediately with nothing more than a handful of manipulatives!
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