Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. May not be reproduced or posted to a publicly accessible website. 7 LESSON 2 Subtraction OBJECTIVES After studying this lesson, you will be able to: • Identify the minuend, subtrahend, and the difference components of a basic subtraction problem. • Compute subtraction problems with a variety of minuends and subtrahends. • Analyze and solve word problems using subtraction. TECHNICAL TERMS difference minuend subtraction subtrahend Subtraction is the process of removing one value from another value to form a difference value. The new value, or difference, is determined when the subtrahend is removed from the minuend. Minuend Minuend – Subtrahend = Difference – Subtrahend Difference Basic subtraction is a counting operation, and can be expressed as a visual rep- resentation and expressed with points on a number line. A visual representation of the subtraction operation follows: A number line representation of the subtraction operation follows: – = one yellow car minus equals two yellow cars three yellow cars 1 0 8 – 2 = 6 2 3 4 5 8 7 6 –1 –2 –3 –4 –6 –7 –5 –8 1