11 Plus Exams Forum

What on earth is the chunking method for maths?

My son has just done his 11+, got on ok, but he is totally confounded by this chunking method

And so am I, and so is Mr Brummum.

Can anyone explain - in an idiot proof way, please

Chunking is a method of long division. It is set out better than I have done below but I am finding it impossible to line up the numbers properly. It is set out approximately the same as a long division.


e.g. 515 divided by 29
-290 take away 10 x 29

225
- 145 take away 5 x 29
80
-58 take away 2 x 29
22 until you have less than 29


Basically you take away chunks until you are left with the final remainder. You add up the number of chunks you have deducted to find the number of 29's in the original number. For ease you would normally take away lots of 10 or 20 or 5 as they are the simplest to calculate.

When I first saw this method, I thought it a little silly but I now find that children who have learned it seem to retain it better than the old fashioned method, are more accurate and are just as quick at it so I have changed my opinion.

But does it work for decimals?

Thanks for explaining this method. My son uses it also. It seems more complicated to me!

it does seem complicated, but I have found that it helps the children understand what is happening when you divide numbers.

It helps a lot with mental maths too. I have teaching 1:1 for a few weeks and the children named division as being one of the things they wanted help with. They just didn't "get it". We did a few examples using chunking and then they went on to short division. All found that they could do it more easily than they had before because they knew what was 'going on'.

mike1880 wrote:But does it work for decimals?

Yes - exactly the same as fm described.

It is my preferred way of division now, I was taught traditional long division, but find this quicker and easier.

Thanks fm.

I must be having a mental block

It still looks horrendously complicated to me - but most mathematical things look complicated to me.

My son seems to be getting the hang of it though - I must go to the next numeracy workshop that the school puts on

My dcs school teach this right from yr 1 or 2, along side multiplication. They understand it a lot better than I do and I only confuse them when I try to help It seems to work brilliantly for them though.