3rd grade math help: multiplication, fractions and what to practice
Get tutoring help for your child →Third grade is a turning point in elementary math. The focus moves from adding and subtracting to multiplying and dividing, and fractions appear as real numbers rather than just shaded pictures. Children who memorized their way through earlier grades can find the ground shifting under them. This guide covers what third graders usually study and how parents can help without drilling the joy out of it.
Third grade standards at a glance
Most states use the Common Core or a similar framework, which centers third grade on four areas:
- Meaning of multiplication and division: 4 × 6 as four groups of six, and 24 ÷ 6 as splitting 24 into equal shares or finding how many sixes fit.
- Fact fluency: knowing all products of two one-digit numbers from memory by year's end.
- Unit fractions and the number line: understanding 1/4 as one part of a whole cut into four equal pieces, placing fractions on a number line, and comparing fractions with the same top or bottom number.
- Area: measuring by counting unit squares, then connecting that to multiplying length by width.
Students also round to the nearest ten or hundred, add and subtract within 1,000, and tell time to the minute.
Common snags with multiplication and fractions
Some children learn their times tables as a song but cannot say what 7 × 8 actually means, so a word problem leaves them stuck. Division feels backward until they see it as the partner of multiplication. With fractions, many students believe 1/8 is bigger than 1/4 because 8 is bigger than 4. Area and perimeter get confused when children count the squares around the edge instead of the squares inside.
Warning signs in third grade
- Multiplication facts are still skip-counted from zero every time, even the twos and fives.
- Your child cannot draw a picture or array to show what a problem means.
- Fractions are compared by looking only at the bottom number.
- Multi-step word problems produce answers without a plan.
For more on fractions specifically, read our guide to helping with fractions.
Questions to put to a math tutor
- How will you help my child understand multiplication before memorizing it?
- What fact strategies do you use, such as doubling or the nines pattern?
- How do you teach fractions with drawings, strips or number lines?
- How will you know when my child is ready to move on?
Low-pressure ways to practice
- Equal groups everywhere: five packs of four juice boxes, three rows of chairs with six in each.
- Fair shares: divide a pizza or a pan of brownies and name the pieces as fractions.
- Card games: flip two cards and race to say the product.
- Tile a floor plan: draw a room on graph paper and count squares to find its area.
- Learn a few facts at a time, starting with ones your child almost knows.
Next year builds directly on this work; see fourth grade math for what follows.
Tell us your child’s grade, ZIP code and the subject that feels hardest. Wherever you live in the U.S., we’ll search for a tutoring provider near you. Families near Bay Ridge, Brooklyn can connect with Huntington Learning Center.
Start the questionnaireRelated guides
- Fractions help for parents: why they are hard and how to help
- 4th grade math help: long division, equivalent fractions and angles
- Math tutoring: what to ask at each school stage
- All parent guides