Decimals on the Line

Decimals have places on the number line, between the whole numbers. Cut the gap from 0 to 1 into ten equal steps and each step is one tenth: 0.1, 0.2, and so on up to 0.9, then 1. The number 0.7 sits seven of those steps to the right of zero.

Many decimals are friendly fractions in disguise. 0.25 is 25 hundredths, which is one quarter, so on a line marked in quarters it sits on the first mark after 0. 0.75 is three quarters, and 1.75 is one whole and three more quarters.

Each quarter step is 0.25.

The whole-number part tells you which gap to look in, and the digits after the point tell you how far into that gap to go. 1.75 lies between 1 and 2, three quarters of the way along.