Is Your Student Mathing This Summer?

For some reason, reading gets all the attention. "Get lots of reading in over the summer" the teachers suggest, but equally important is that children get quality "mathing" in over their break as well.

Math success is highly dependent upon the skills already mastered, knowing the ever increasing vocabulary that goes with it, and being a critical problem solver.  

• It is hard to understand why the rules of mathematics work if you miss the foundation.
• If you don't know what the words mean, they how do you know what to do or how do you follow along with the lesson? I read a long time ago when I was a curriculum writer, that students acquire approximately 60-80 specific math vocabulary words a year beginning in first grade. Wow! So on the low end, 60 new words that identify an attribute or quality of a number, shape or process. 
• If a student struggles with recognizing which strategy to apply where, it becomes a major road block regardless of how strong their facts are.  

Mathing takes some structure. While math fact apps are handy and essential, they are also considered in the education world as "lower level" thinking skills. Memorization and experience gets everyone to ultimately become fluent with their facts, the apps and websites make it fun and easy to accomplish. The more productive approach for mathing is isolating the skills your student is already good in using from the ones where they are inconsistent. This is where our summer program makes a serious dent in student progress!

We are offering a free trial during our Grand Opening and would love to offer you a risk-free opportunity to see where your student stands as far as grade level standards in math. If they are behind, let's catch them up. If they are generally successful, let's kick it up a notch and make those areas where they lack confidence become easy. Are they missing their favorite subject during this break? Let's give them the depth and breadth of their fave so they can continue to be the rock star they are.

All we want to do is share our love of the subject with students throughout La Jolla. Not a bad mission, right? If it becomes less intimidating and more understandable, then right away we are half way there! Let us know how we ca meet your math goal for your student.