Think back to what you've learned about place value. When you have a three-digit whole number, the digit on the right is in the ones place (ones column), the digit to the left of the ones place is the tens place (tens column), and the digit to the left of the tens place is the hundreds place (hundreds column). If you know this, you should be able to recognize any number up to 999.
But some numbers are even greater than that. Let's take a look at one:
2,131
Now we're dealing with a four-digit whole number. This is called a thousands number. The digit to the left of the hundreds place is the thousands place (thousands column). When a thousands digit is used, it has a comma right after it.
Here's how we say numbers like these: We say the number or numbers before the comma and then we say "thousand." Then we say the rest of the number. For this example, we would say the number before the comma-"2"-then "thousand," and then "one hundred thirty-one." So this number is two thousand, one hundred thirty-one.
Here's another thousands number. Can you figure out how you would say it?
5,000
In this case, the comma is followed by three zeroes, so we don't say anything after "thousand." This number is simply five thousand.
