Division by decimals

[LIZS]

Is there a quick method of doing this . dd (12) has a whole page and it seems very longwinded. Her method is to multiply divisor until a whole number then do long division ?

That's what DS2 (12) just told me he'd do when I asked him "blind".

I'd probably multiply the divisor by 10 to make it a whole number, then do the division by whatever method they've been taught, then multiply the answer by 10 to correct it.

so 36 / 1.2

1.2x10=12

36 / 12 = 3

3x10 = 30

36/1.2=30

You need to do the same thing to both top and bottom to keep the sum equal.

So using the example Ihatespiders gives:

36/1.2

x10=

360/12 = 30

It's about learning mastery of the operation so it becomes second nature. (And master, also, the idea that any number can be divided by any number, however odd, and still get an answer.)

There are many ways of doing it (or describing it). I'd say multiply both top and bottom by 10 (or, I suspect, 100 or even 1000 by the time you get to last examples) to get to whole numbers and then divide in the normal way.