Course Guide - USAID Teacher Education Project

• Area: This model sets the stage for several important concepts, includinggeometric measurement, multiplication of fractions, and prime and compositenumbers. Note that this is different from an array shown above in that the areamodel is continuous space, bounded by the rectangle, whereas the array wascomposed of discrete objects.• This second area model, used for multi-digit multiplication and called the"partial products" model, builds on the simple area model described above, butnow the factors are decomposed into tens and units. This will also be used asa visual model for multiplication in algebra. Although this picture shows theexact number of cells for the problem (indicating the magnitude of the partialproducts and solution) a simple hand-drawn set of labeled rectangles cansuffice once students understand the process.