It’s pretty obvious that knowing how to read a ruler is important to not just your grades in school but also your day-to-day life. Let’s start by looking at how to read a ruler in inches. If you’re American, this is the measurement you probably know better than centimeters, which are sometimes included on your standard 12-inch, or 1-foot, ruler (we’ll go over how to read a ruler in cm in the next section). Metric rulers usually have only centimeters and millimeters on them. But did you know there's an even tinier unit called nanometers? Learn how to convert nanometers to metersand other measurements with our in-depth guide. In this guide, we’ll explain why you should know how to read a ruler and give you step-by-step instructions on how to read a ruler in inches and cm. We’ll also provide you with some helpful resources you can use to keep honing your ruler-reading skills. The truth is that there are tons of moments in life when you’ll need to know how to read a ruler. And if you don’t know how to read a ruler, then you’ll likely suffer some consequences. For instance, what if you make two pieces of something that don’t fit together because one is shorter or longer than it was supposed to be? Or what if you mess up a science experiment because you didn’t accurately read the measurement of a piece of string you cut?

Part of the Visual Stress Collection: a previous winning product of the Education Resources Awards SEN Resource of the Year.Got questions about decimals and fractions?Our expert guides will teach you how to convert decimals to fractions and how to add and subtract fractions. Next is 1/8 inch, which is the second-smallest unit of a ruler. The 1/8 lines are found midway between each 1/4-inch line: Now, notice the lines between each inch, with some longer and some shorter than others. Each of these tiny lines represents a fraction of an inch. There are five different lengths of lines in total.

The 1/2-inch line is located midway between every inch on a ruler. The midpoint between 7 and 8 inches, for instance, would be 7 1/2 (or 7.5) inches. Tinted strips on the edge of the ruler and not as a central “letterbox”, ensuring that context is not lost. A sufficiently wide range of colors to meet the needs of all children who will benefit from using a colored overlay product The standard metric ruler is 30 cm long. Each centimeter is labeled with a number to show the measurement it's referring to. You might see inches on the other side of your metric ruler. In this case, refer to the instructions above to learn how to read a ruler in inches. All of these resources, in addition to the handful of practice questions we gave you above, should be enough to get you reading a ruler in no time at all!Launched in 2004 to provide a user-friendly alternative for Irlen Syndrome sufferers who resist using the more intrusive large overlays, these reading rulers combine the following features: - Inches correspond to the imperial system, which is the main measuring system used in the US and a smattering of other countries. Example: You’re measuring the length of a strand of hair. The strand comes to the ninth line after 16 cm on the ruler. This would mean the strand is 16.9 cm long (that’s 16 cm + 9 mm). If you counted in 1/8-inch increments, you'd find that the second line after 0 equals 1/8 inch, the fourth line 2/8 (1/4) inch, the sixth line 3/8 inch, the eighth line 4/8 (2/4 or 1/2) inch, the 10th line 5/8 inch, the 12th line 6/8 (3/4) inch, and the 14th line 7/8 inch.