Progressive Ruling
Progressive Ruling is a set of rulers marked in different increments to be used to concretely, visually, and tactilely teach and reinforce fraction concepts and computation. Learners measure lines and spaces to understand the concepts and procedures. By visualizing concrete examples of fraction computation, learners understand the methods and why they work. All activities and examples use the common fractions--halves, fourths, eighths, and sixteenths. By working with these fractions repetitiously, learners become comfortable with the methods as they see the fractions and mixed numbers visually. This feeling of success, understanding, and repetition helps learners remember how to solve fraction problems. Learners can then extend what they have learned with these fractions to other sets of fractions such as thirds, sixths, twelfths or to using fractions whose denominators are not in the same table. By learning one set of fractions first, then applying those processes to another set, and then mixing the sets, learners will follow the building-block linking that is the foundation of retention.
