Lesson 3- Decimal Place Value and Value

Objective

At the end of this lesson, students should know and understand the place value and value of decimal numbers.

Decimal Vocabulary

Decimal/Decimal number: – Is a number that represents a whole number and part of a whole by separating them with a point.
Decimal point: – Is a point separating the ones and tenths place in a decimal number.
Ones: – Is the place value of the digit on the immediate left hand side of the decimal point.
Tenth: – Is the first digit on the immediate right hand side of the decimal point. It is the first decimal place and represents parts out of 10 equal parts. (E.g.0.8 means 8 parts out of 10, i.e. )
Hundredth: – Is the second number on the right hand side of the decimal point. It represents parts out of 100 equal parts. (E.g. 0.03 means 3 parts out of 100, i.e. )
Thousandth: – Is the third number on the right hand side of the decimal point. It represents parts out of 1000 equal parts. (E.g. 0.007 represents 7 parts out of 1000, i.e. )
Ten thousandth: – Is the fourth number on the right hand side of the decimal point. It represents parts out of 10,000 equal parts. (E.g. 0.0002 means 2 parts out of 10000, i.e. )
Decimal place: – Is the number of digits after the decimal point.

The decimal point separates the whole number from the fraction part of a decimal number.

In the diagram shown above, the whole number is 5,638,742. The lowest place value of the whole numbers is the units. Hence, from right to left (on the left hand side of the decimal point) we have: units, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousand millions.

The fraction part of the decimal number lies on the right hand side of the decimal point. The highest place value of the fraction part or decimal is the tenth and it reduces towards the far right as follows: tenth, hundredth, thousandth, ten thousandth etc. as shown in the illustration above.

Example 1

What is the place value and value of the underlined digits in the decimal numbers below?

(a) 14.204 (b) 849.916 (c) 1476.8

(d) 0.1436 (e) 532.7539 (f) 48.231

Solution