Lesson: Comparing and Ordering Fractions

Developing the Concept

Students should be comfortable using models to compare and order fractions before you ask them to use benchmarks and equivalent
fractions to perform the same task.

Materials: none

Preparation: none

• Take notes on the board or overhead projector as students devise rules for benchmarks for 0, , and 1. Some students may be
able to devise the rules without a number line; others may need to see how the fractions fall visually.

• Ask: How can you tell when a fraction is close to 1?

Discuss this until students agree that, since the denominator tells how many equal parts in 1, the closer the numerator is to the
denominator, the closer the value of the fraction is to 1.

• Ask: Is close to 1?
By their definition, is close to 1.

• Ask: Is close to 1?
Even though 1 is close to 2, you can't really say that is close to 1.

• Ask: How can you tell when a fraction is close to ?

This question should also lead to lively discussion. Encourage students to come to the conclusion that a fraction is close to if
the numerator is about one half as large as the denominator.

• Ask: Is close to ?
By their definition, is close to .

• Ask: How do you think you can tell when a fraction is close to 0?
Given the discussions so far, this one should easily lead to the conclusion that a fraction is close to zero when the numerator is
very small compared to the denominator. This gets more obvious as the denominator gets larger (1 in the numerator makes a
fraction seem close to 0 unless the denominator is 2).

• Say: Use the benchmarks you just made up to compare these numbers to 0, , or 1: , , and .
is close to 1; is close to 0; is close to but less than .

• Ask: Can you use benchmarks to order , , and from least to greatest?
Given the previous exercise, students should easily order these numbers: , , .

Try several more simple benchmark-ordering exercises.

• Ask: What can you do if you're not sure about how two fractions compare?
Help students to arrive at the conclusion that they can write equivalent fractions with like denominators if they're not sure of a
comparison.

Review writing equivalent fractions.

Write the fractions , , and on the board.
 • Say: Suppose you want to order , , and from least to greatest. You can see that if all the fractions had the same
denominator, you would only need to compare the numerators.

• Ask: How can we find an equivalent fraction for with a denominator of 10?
Guide students to see that to find an equivalent fraction, you need to multiply both the numerator and denominator by the
same number.

• Ask: What number times 5 will give you 10? (2)

Then show the multiplication.
= =
Rewrite the fractions: , ,

• Say: Now order the fractions from least to greatest. ( , , )

Wrap-Up and Assessment Hints

After students have worked comfortably with manipulatives, benchmarks, and equivalent fractions as they compare and order fractions,
ask them to make up fractions to compare and work with a partner. You'll know they understand the concepts when they ask each
other to compare fractions with greater denominators whose numerators are close to each other. When assessing students, check that
they have a clear understanding of fraction concepts, such as the meaning ofnumerator, denominator, and improper
fraction. Determine whether students can write improper fractions as mixed numbers, write fractions in simplest form, and find
equivalent fractions. These skills must be mastered before students progress to computing with fractions.

Section Two: Comparing and Ordering fractions

Now you are ready to compare and order fractions, because the surest way to do this with any set of fractions is to determine what their
common denominator is. REMEMBER, YOU CANNOT COMPARE OR ORDER FRACTIONS JUST BY LOOKING AT THE NUMERICAL
ORDER OF DENOMINATORS!

Remember that pre-test problem, "Which is larger, 5/16 or 1/3?"

If you said 5/16 was larger, it was because you thought since 16 is larger than 3, then 5/16 must be larger than 1/3 (especially since 5 is bigger
than 1!). But it turned out that 1/3 was larger.

If you drew two circles, divided one into 16 parts and colored 5 of those, and divided the other circle into 3 parts and shaded 1 of them, you
could easily see (assuming you made each part of equal size) that 1/3 was bigger than 5/16, but since we are working with a keyboard and not
a sketch pad, this is harder to show than just working it out, and it can be worked out only by finding the lowest common denominator to 'easily
see' which is bigger.

Since 16 and 3 are relatively prime to each other, you can use the LCD of 16 x 3 = 48.

5x3/16x3 = 15/48 and 1x16/3x16 = 16/48. Since the numerator of the second fraction is bigger, then 1/3 is bigger than 5/16. NO
GUESSWORK INVOLVED!

So, to find which of two or more fractions is larger (or smaller for that matter), turn the fractions into fractions with a common denominator, then
judge by their numerators which is bigger (or smaller).

You do basically the same thing--find the lowest common denominator of the set of fractions--to put the fractions in order.

Let's look at Example 2 of Page 100 of Cambridge GED:

Arrange the following in order from least to greatest: 13/20; 3/5; 3/4

What's the LCD? 20 (20, 4, 5 have an LCM of 20). So we have

13/20, 3/5 which is 12/20, and 3/4 which is 15/20. So from least to greatest, we have:
 3/5, then 13/20, then 3/4.

Could you tell just by looking at the three fractions given which was the lowest? Believe me, I couldn't!

Comparing Fractions
Sometimes we need to compare two fractions to discover which is larger or smaller. There are two easy ways to
compare fractions: using decimals; or using the same denominator

The Decimal Method of Comparing Fractions

Just convert each fraction to decimals, and then compare the decimals.

Example: which is bigger: 3/8 or 5/12 ?

You need to convert each fraction to a decimal. You can do this using your calculator (3÷8 and 5÷12), or you can
read about Converting Fractions to Decimals.
Anyway, these are the answers I get:
3
/8 = 0.375, and 5/12 = 0.4166...
So, 5/12 is bigger.

The Same Denominator Method

The denominator is the bottom number in a fraction.

It shows how many equal parts the item is divided into

If two fractions have the same denominator then they are easy to compare:

Example:
4
/9 is less than 5/9 (because 4 is less than 5)

But if the denominators are not the same you need to make them the same (using Equivalent Fractions).

Example: Which is larger: 3/8 or 5/12 ?

If you multiply 8 × 3 you get 24 , and if you multiply 12 × 2 you also get 24, so let's try that (important: what
you do to the bottom, you must also do to the top):
×3 ×2

3 9 5 10
= and =
8 24 12 24

×3 ×2
It is now easy to see that /24 is smaller than /24, (because 9 is smaller than 10).
9 10

so 5/12 is the larger fraction.

 How to Make the Denominators the Same
The trick is to find the Least Common Multiple of the two denominators. In the previous example, the Least
Common Multiple of 8 and 12 was 24.

Then it is just a matter of changing each fraction to make it's denominator the Least Common Multiple.

Example: Which is larger: 5/6 or 13

/15?
The Least Common Multiple of 6 and 15 is 30. So, let's do some multiplying to make each denominator equal to
30 :
×5 ×2

5 25 13 26
= and =
6 30 15 30

×5 ×2
Now we can easily see that /30 is the larger fraction
26

so 13/15 is the larger fraction.