Reading scales is an important aspect of year 3 measurement work and I am beginning to produce material for this. Children will be used to reading scales where the divisions go up in ones, but they find it much harder when either they go up in larger numbers or when not all the divisions are numbered. This worksheet does both of these. The ruler shown is a scale drawing and each division is 10 cm, but only the 100 cm division lines are named.
Once it has been established that each mark represents 10 cm., it is relatively straightforward to work out the lengths shown. As children usually only use centimetre rulers this might be the first time they come across a ruler where not all the divisions are numbered.