By Nancy Burkhart
www.frontporchstapleton.com
Many people have an affinity for a specific activity: reading books, playing sports, creating art projects or rebuilding engines. But children in school can’t specialize; they have to deal with both right brain and left brain learning. They have math classes as well as English classes and sometimes a weakness in math spills over into the rest of the classes.
This is where Mathnasium of Cherry Creek, a math-only learning center, comes in. There, trained instructors teach math to children from the second through the 12th grades. “The Mathnasium method is to make math easy and take the fear and anxiety out of the kids who have struggled with it,” said Stapleton resident Bernard Douthit who is the owner/center director of the Mathnasium of Cherry Creek. “For children who struggle academically, math seems to be the weakest link in the chain,” he said. “You need to repair that weakest link that spills over into other areas, such as reading and writing. We teach math in a way that makes sense to kids. The curriculum is put in the language of children so they can understand the key concepts.”
At Mathnasium, children first have an oral evaluation to determine their needs. Then they have about half an hour of written assessment. “We don’t want to overwhelm them,” Douthit said. “We want this to be a positive experience. Our system generates a learning plan for them from their assessment tests.” Children go to Mathnasium twice a week for a three-month period. At the end of this time, they are given another assessment to determine their progress. “We try not to over-test them,” Douthit said. “We evaluate the progress they’ve made. It’s lasting. It’s not a temporary improvement.” The math tutoring will give the child confidence in the area where they are weak. However, it is possible that they may find another area of math that gives them problems later in their education, Douthit said.
“There are people who say that math comes easy to them and there are people who struggle with it,” he noted. “It might be left brain vs. right brain. Not everybody’s going to be an electrical engineer or a physicist. But I think everybody can learn math. Math is key to the foundation of problem-solving. Our goal is to make math make sense, especially to those children who might be right-brained so that they, too, can be good at reasoning and be more engaged so they’re not intimidated and fearful.”
Instruction at Mathnasium is one-on-one in a group environment, Douthit said. “We use the teach-and-move-on methodology,” he said. The student-teacher ratio is three to one. Children need help, but if a math instructor is watching them all the time, a teacher will give them clues about how to solve problems. But they need to solve it on their own. The instructor is never more than a few feet away.” Mathnasium of Cherry Creek will have a grand opening from 10am to 4pm on Saturday, February 5. Guests will meet instructors and learn about the math curriculum. Children can take a math assessment at that time.
For Mathnasium information, go to www.mathnasium.com or email [email protected]. The Center is located at 2500 E. 6th Ave. at Columbine Street. Call 303.333.MATH.
