This course is a first look at algebra. It is for a student who is meeting letters in place of numbers for the first time. It starts with what a letter means, and builds up to shortening simple expressions.
The course is built up in five steps. You begin with letters that stand for numbers you have not counted yet. There you meet two kinds of symbol. A variable can take different values. A constant keeps one. Next you turn sentences in words into symbols. You learn which words mean add, take away, multiply and divide, and which number to write first. Then you name the parts of a piece of algebra: terms, factors and co-efficients. After that you learn to tell like terms from unlike ones by looking at the letter part. Last, you join like terms by adding or taking away the numbers in front.
By the end you will be able to:
- say whether a symbol such as or is a variable or a constant, and why;
- write a sentence such as less than half of in symbols, as ;
- count the terms in an expression such as ;
- list the factors of a product such as , and give the co-efficient of a term;
- decide whether two terms are like or unlike by looking at their letter parts;
- add and take away like terms, so that becomes ;
- recognise that an answer such as is already as short as it can be.
These three words, term, factor and co-efficient, are the words later rules are written in. Once you can name the parts, you can read the rule.