Representing Whole Numbers (Place Value)

Why might students struggle with representing

whole numbers?

Students might struggle with representing and renaming whole numbers for any

of the following reasons:

• Students may not understand the periodic nature of the place value system,

that is, we group numbers in groups of 3 (ones, thousands, millions, etc.),

each with a hundreds, tens, and ones section.

• They may have difficulty because so many place value terms sound the same

(e.g., hundred thousands, thousands, and hundreds mean very different things

but may sound similar).

• It is not intuitively obvious why the value of a digit changes depending on its

place in a numeral (e.g., the value of the 3 in 302 is different from the value of

the 3 in 203).

• Students may have difficulty when the 0 is inside the number (e.g., they

interpret 3002 as three hundred plus two).

• It is not obvious where certain numbers might appear in real-life contexts

(e.g., the number of people in an arena is not likely to be 3 000 000 but might

be 3000 or possibly 30 000).

• Students may have difficulty multiplying or dividing by 10, 100, or 1000,

especially if the number has a last digit of 0 (e.g., a student might write

30 x 100 as 300, focusing only on the two 0s in the x 100).

Good job Rahul!