If you are a beginner and looking at a fraction for the first time the most important thing to understand is that fractions are parts of a whole.
For example, you can create many fractions from the number one ($1$), such as a quarter ($1/4$), a half ($1/2$), three quarters ($3/4$), and many more.
Think of a whole as a pie with eight slices. If all of the slices are still a part of the pie then the pie is still whole but if you begin to start removing any of the slices then each slice becomes a fraction of the whole.
Understanding Fractions
For example, let’s say you had a pie made up of eight slices but you removed three of those slices you’ve essentially removed $3/8$ of the pie.
3 – Is the number of slices you took from the pie.
8 – Represents the total number of slices that make up the whole of the pie.
As a beginner, before you can start solving fractions you must first understand what a fraction means and also understand that similar to regular numbers you can also add, subtract, divide and multiply fractions as well.
When you start learning fractions for the first time an easy way to understand and visualize what the numbers mean is to draw squares and use shaded boxes.
More Beginner Examples of Fraction
Follow this exercise with a pen/pencil and a piece of paper. Let’s focus on the fraction $1/2$. Now draw a rectangle. Draw a line in the middle of the rectangle. Then shade one side. You now have a fraction that represents $1/2$ of the rectangle.
1 – The side of the rectangle that is shaded.
2 – Represents both squares in the rectangle.
Here is a video explaining in more detail how a beginner can understand and look at fractions.
