Reading and Writing Decimals

Lesson 1-4

Place Value

The number in the chart above is read “fifty-one and three hundred forty-five thousandths.”Read the number before the decimal. Say “and.” for the decimal. Read the number following the decimal. Add the word for the place value of the last digit.

Reading Decimals

Read the number before the decimal point.Say “and” when you get to the decimal.Read the number after the decimal.Say the name of the place that the decimal ends in.

Example8,243.67

Eight thousand, two hundred forty-three

and sixty-seven hundredths

Expanded Form

Write the number that appears before the decimal point in expanded form.For decimals, place a zero in the ones place.Also, substitute zeroes for all spaces after the decimal point that come before the digit that you are working with.

Example: Write 13.361 in expanded form.Remember, deal with the number before the decimal first.

10 + 3Then, do the decimal part.

0.060.3 ++ + 0.001

From Words to Standard Form

Read everything that comes before the word “and.” Write that number down.Place a decimal point at the word “and.”Read the last word of the sentence to see how many decimal places you need.Fill in the decimal places with your number. Fill in as far to the right as possible, and use zeroes to fill any empty spaces.

Example: Write the following number in standard form:

two hundred six and fifty-four ten-thousandths

206.The word “ten-thousandths” indicates that we need four decimal places.

__ __ __ __5 40 0

When we clean it up, the answer is 206.0054

Homework Time!