{"id":53317,"date":"2026-09-14T13:57:03","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T13:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/?p=53317"},"modified":"2026-09-14T13:59:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T13:59:04","slug":"math-less-than-part2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/math-less-than-part2\/","title":{"rendered":"Math: less than, part2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2>Tutoring math, &#8220;less than&#8221; can be non-intuitive with negative numbers. The tutor mentions a way to see it.<\/h2>\n<p>\nThe following is by my understanding.<\/p>\n<p>\nI mention in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/math-less-than-part1\/\">yesterday&#8217;s post<\/a> the idea of less than in math. It&#8217;s not always intuitive for people.<\/p>\n<p>\nOne problem with less than, to my mind, is that people relate it with &#8220;smaller than.&#8221; That idea might be intuitive for positive numbers, but for negative numbers, less so.<\/p>\n<p>\nLess than isn&#8217;t a measure of size, but rather of position, as I mention in yesterday&#8217;s post. Perhaps another way to see it is that -10 is less than -4, because it takes +6 to move from -10 to -4.<\/p>\n<p>\nSource:<\/p>\n<p>Travers,K.J., Dalton,L.C., Brunner,V.F., Taylor,A.R. (1977). <em>Using Advanced Algebra.<\/em> Doubleday Canada Limited.<\/p>\nJack of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\">Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane,<\/a> Campbell River, BC.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tutoring math, &#8220;less than&#8221; can be non-intuitive with negative numbers. The tutor mentions a way to &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/math-less-than-part2\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Math: less than, part2<\/span> Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4453,4454],"class_list":["post-53317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-math","tag-fundamental-math-concepts","tag-how-to-explain-less-than"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53317"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53320,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53317\/revisions\/53320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}