Place Value & Naming Decimals at a Glance

The first thing to understand about decimals is place value. Each digit in a number holds a specific place

Until now, we have mostly dealt with place values to the left of the decimal. The place values to the right end in "ths". Here is a number with seven significant digits to the right of the decimal:

123456789.9876543

Look Out: notice there is no such thing as the"oneths" place.

When naming a number, we use the word "and" to mean everything after the decimal, and you usually only pronounce the last place value. For example, 47.056 would be pronounced "forty-seven and fifty-six thousandths".

Exercise 1

Pronounce 103.047


Exercise 2

Pronounce 1.000008


Exercise 3

Write fifty-six and two hundred five thousandths


Exercise 4

Write seven million twelve and seventy-three millionths