Expert: Lynn Houston - 6/25/2009

Question
my fourth grade grandchild is    doing math problem with finding the 'y' problem.  I understand on converting the fractions to common denominators, but I was wondering if there were a simpler way that they taught 4th graders. This is an example of the problems - 1/2 + 3/5 # 1y/10

Answer
Not that I know of.  It's still a matter of finding the lowest common denominator.  I the example above, it would be ten, so you'd have
5/10, 6/10 and 1y/10.  I can't go any further in solving it because I'm not sure if the "-" before the 1/2 is a dash or a negative sign and I'm not sure what the # is supposed to be.