Sales Price Entry Point

A pseudo- concrete representation of a sales price problem is shown below. This is what I use as an entry point for teaching these problems.

  • The entire shape represents the total price of $80. This is 100%, which in student language is “the whole thing.”

  • The discount rate is 25%. Cut with scissors to lop off the 25% which also lops off $20, which is the actual discount. Explain to the student that this 25% is part of the “whole thing.”

  • What remains is 75% or $60. This is the “new price” which is called the sales price.

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Making Discount Meaningful

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Educators teaching math typically start with the “mathy” stuff first. For example, for finding the sales price teachers may start with showing students the steps to calculate (photo below).

I start with the concept, either with a pictorial representation or actual objects to represent the underlying concept. In the photo above, I show an object (related to the student’s interest – this student is into weight training) on sale. The $50 circled in yellow represent the original price. I explain the concept of being on sale and discount and show that 20% is $10 to take away (marked out). This leaves $40 (in green) which is the sales price. This allows for conceptual understanding before showing him the “mathy” way of doing the problem.

compute discount

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