Visual Long Division Calculator - DadsWorksheets.com The first step in long division, the “divide” step, is to try to find the smallest part the dividend that can be divided by the divisor. Looking at the first digit in the dividend, we see that 1 cannot be divided by 3, so we need to continue and look at the second digit as well. 12 can be divided by 3, so we start out with a 4 as the first digit in the quotient.