Grades 2-3: Standard, Word, & Expanded Form
Standard form, word form, and expanded form are ways to express numbers. You can write the same number in
all three ways.
Standard form means expressing numbers using numbers.
Word form means expressing numbers by spelling them out in words.
Expanded form means expressing according to place value. This is a lile trickier because you have to
think about how much is in each place: ones, tens, hundreds, etc.
Look at the chart below for an example. Then, we will explain how we got to these answers.
Standard Form Word Form Expanded Form
534 Five hundred thirty-four 500 + 30 + 4
Wring the number in standard form might be the easiest since we usually think about numbers wrien this way.
That’s why it’s called standard!
To gure out the expanded form, try rst making a place value chart. Here is what it would look like for 534.
To gure out the word form, think about how you say the number out loud. It also helps if you can check your
spelling. This chart can help: hps://www.ef.com/wwen/english-resources/english-grammar/numbers-english/
Hundreds Tens Ones
Because we have ve hundreds, that’s worth 500. Because we have three tens, that’s worth 30. Because we
have four ones, that’s worth 4.
The numbers in green above show these amounts. To write the expanded form, just add + signs: 500 + 30 + 4.
500
30
4
For more on this topic: hps://www.turtlediary.com/video/number-forms-standard-expanded-or-word-
form.html
