You've learned how to know whether a single-digit divisor divides into the first place value digit or the first two place value digits of a three-digit dividend. If the digit under the division sign is less than your divisor, you need to do a two-digit division. What if you have a four-digit dividend? You may have to work on a two-digit number twice.
Take a look at this problem:
The thousands digit under the division sign is 1. It's less than 6, so we underline the thousands and hundreds digits, 1 and 2. Now we can divide 12 by 6. Write the answer over the 2 in the hundreds place.
Look at the tens digit. The digit 2 is less than 6, so we work on a two-digit number again. Let's underline 2 and 4. Let's show that we tried to divide 2 by 6. How do we do that? We write a zero over the 2 in the tens place.
Then we can work on the problem. The answer to 24 divided by 6 equals 4 (24 ÷ 6 = 4). So we write a 4 above the digit in the ones place.
Let's look at another problem:
The thousands digit under the division sign is 2. We can't divide 2 by 9, so we underline the thousands and hundreds digits and work on 27 divided by 9, which equals 3 (27 ÷ 9 = 3). Write a 3 above the digit in the hundreds place.
The next number is 4, which is less than 9. So we underline two digits again. First, write a zero above the 4 in the tens place. Then solve 45 divided by 9. Write a 5 above the digit in the ones place.
So, 2,745 divided by 9 equals 305 (2,745 ÷ 9 = 305). Easy, isn't it?
