Math Help for 7th Grader
Hi - We're just realizing (albeit late) that our 7th grader is falling behind in math and we'd like to strengthen his foundations before he goes to HS in a year and a half. He has a week math foundation, but for the most can study for a particular "unit" test at school and do okay. He said he often doesn't see what strategies to employ to solve a problem, so he does really poorly on tests that are not based on a particular math topic. Do you have a recommendation for a private math tutor or do you work with a tutoring center (with recommendations for a particular tutor) that you think has been effective for your child? Thanks!
Mar 4, 2019
Parent Replies
We have used Bay Area Tutoring Center on Rose Street in Berkeley across from CVS. They have excellent tutors! Email is the best way to contact them. Google and contact via website. Good luck and it’s never too late!
Charlie Stephen tutors my 7th grade son at our home and he is fantastic! My son respects the heck out of him, gets a lot out of each session and has improved academically. Charlie is a great math tutor but can tutor all subjects including Spanish! His email is charlie-stephen [at] comcast.net. We are in Oakland--not sure if he travels outside of Oakland.
My junior in high school sees Betty Cui at Classroom Matters. She also had a weak foundation in math. All of the tutors there have been wonderful. Betty is very good at getting my child to look at the whole picture so she can figure out new things. We have been pleased with her weekly updates and her ability to identify where my child needs help.
Hi, I feel your pain about middle school math. My daughter, now 16, had a 6th grade math teacher who told me, in front of my daughter, that “some kids can’t do math and never will and she is one of them.” I was gobsmacked. We had been using a private tutor for two years at that point. She did not have an IEP or 504 and school testing showed that she had no cognitive issues they could find, but that her anxiety was too severe for her to perform. They offered her no help.
I ended up pulling my daughter out of public school entirely at the end of 7th grade and enrolling her at Tilden Prep. The teaching there is one-on-one and mastery based, so they do not move onto a new unit until they have successfully (above 80%) completed the current unit. For math, this proved invaluable. They were able to fill in the holes where she had completely missed concepts necessary to advance. And now, as a sophomore, she is successfully completing geometry with confidence and she says math is one of her favorite subjects. Not sure if private education is the direction for your child, but just wanted to share my experience.
Good luck!
I highly recommend that you study the work that Stanford researcher Jo Boaler has done. It's all about how kids learn math - here is her website https://www.youcubed.org and her book to read is "Mathematical Mindsets".