challenge

[Thomas Okken]

(06-22-2018 01:17 PM)Don Shepherd Wrote:  As a math teacher of kids who are first learning about operations that include decimal numbers (grades 6 or 7), we teach them to let the word "and" represent the decimal point when they pronounce numbers. So pronunciation of integers will never have the word "and," and pronunciation of decimal numbers will have exactly one "and", pronounced at the decimal point.

so 9,999 is "nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine"
18.7 is "eighteen and seven tenths"
4,566.173 is "four thousand five hundred sixty-six and one hundred seventy-three thousandths"

Most kids catch on to this pretty quickly, and when they later go into the real world and hear people say "six hundred and seventy-five", they still get it.

But what is the point of teaching kids a convention that doesn't match how people speak in the real world? Does anyone not pronounce 18.7 as "eighteen point seven"?