<marquee>Please copy the notes correctly and think through the steps as they are presented.</marquee>

Please begin with the notes, then go to the practice. Practice until you feel ready to take the test. Thank you!

In the last lesson you learned how to make equivalent fractions, to change the names to be bigger on fractions. Now, you will learn how to make a fraction show in lowest terms.

Before you multiplied to have the terms become larger, now you will divide to reduce the terms.

 We will be using 1 to reduce with. Any number over itself equals one.

You see in front of you the fraction 6/8. Using your divisibility rules you know that both 6 and 8 are even which means you can divide them both by the number 2. You must do the same thing to both the numerator and denominator of a fraction in order to keep the value of your fraction. If you divide 6 by 2 you get 3, if you divide 8 by 2 you get 4 and your new fraction is ¾. You can remember that if you multiply ¾ by 2 over 2 you get 6/8, reducing fractions is just the opposite.

Let’s do another fraction, 10/20. You can see that both 10 and 20 end with a zero which means they are both divisible by 10, 10 divided by 10 is 1 and 20 divided by 10 is 2, thus 10/20 can be reduced to ½. When you reduce fractions you must keep reducing until it is no longer possible to divide both the numerator and the denominator by the same number.

Say you have 30 over 60, you see that they both end in zero so you divide them both by 10 which gives you 3/6. You are not done yet because both 3 and 6 are divisible by 3 so you have to divide 3 by 3 which is 1 and 6 by 3 which is 2, thus 30/60 can be reduced to ½. Please continue on to the practice and take the test when you are ready.”