Introduction
There are many ways to informally teach the language of fractions through halves, quarters and sharing but this post will focus more on the progressions steps for formal teaching.
Children's prior knowledge
To get the most out of these steps, children should be able to:
understand how to use a number line.
understand division and sharing.
Step 1: The Area Model
Teach children fractions as part of the Area Model. This is probably the bit most parents and teachers are familiar with, it's the "pizza model." At this stage, children need to understand that fractions are equal parts of one whole.
Taking quarters as an example (see the video below), children need to understand
one circle as a whole.
that circle is split into 4 equal parts.
a quarter is one part out of 4.
They need to understand the notation of 1 part out of the whole.