Division Tutoring for Students in Elementary School

Dividing is one of the key math skills you'll learn in elementary school, but it can be challenging, especially when you get to long division. Keep reading for a step-by-step explanation of elementary division!

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Tutoring for Elementary Division

Division Within 100

The first challenge you'll tackle is learning division facts with numbers less than 100. You're likely to start by learning about division using pictures or objects, and then you'll memorize the basic facts.

When you divide, you start with a number (the dividend), and you divide it into a certain number of equal-sized groups. The divisor (the second number in the division problem) tells you how many groups you're creating, and the size of the groups is the answer, or quotient. If there are any leftovers that won't fit into a group, they are called the remainder.

For example, let's say you have a box of 20 chocolates and you want to give each of your 5 friends an equal portion. If you divide your 20 chocolates up into 5 groups, each group will have 4 chocolates, so 20 ÷ 5 = 4.

Notice that if you wanted to divide the 20 chocolates among 4 friends, each person would get 5 chocolates. The same is true for any division problem. If a number (a) divided by another number (b) equals a third number (c), then a ÷ c = b. Also, c x b and b x c will both equal a.

Long Division

When you don't have the answer to a division problem memorized, you can use a technique called long division to solve it. For instance, imagine that you want to solve 57 ÷ 3. Follow these steps:

1. Write the dividend (57) under a long division box, and write the divisor (3) on the outside of the box to the left.
2. Determine whether the divisor (3) is smaller than the first number in the dividend (5). In this case, it is, so figure out how many times 3 goes into 5. It goes in 1 time, so write a 1 above the 5 on top of the division box. This is the first digit of your answer.
3. Next, multiply the first digit of the answer by the divisor and write the result underneath the dividend's first digit (under the 5). Then, subtract it from that digit (5 - 3 = 2).
4. After that, bring down the next number from the dividend beside the result of step 3. In this case, you'll bring the 7 down beside the 2 to make 27.
5. Determine how many times the divisor (3) goes into this new number (27). In this problem, 27 ÷ 3 = 9, so you'll write a 9 above the long division box to the right of the 1.
6. Multiply the number you just wrote (9) by the divisor (3) to get 27, and write it underneath the 27 on the bottom. Then you'll subtract, and the answer is the remainder. In this case, the answer is zero, so your problem doesn't have a remainder. The final answer is 19.

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