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Additional Information
Tutoring with Amy focuses on the areas of number sense and computation. As there is no assessment that truly measures grade level equivalency in mathematics in a deep, conceptual manner, progress will be monitored according to goals and researched developmental stages. here is truly no valid numerical “score” to measure growth. Some commercial tutoring companies will claim they can do so. Amy’s assessment is looking at a deeper understanding than those.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not teach your child “your way of doing things” especially by teaching them a written procedural algorithm (such as stacking numbers and carrying and borrowing.) This almost always derails their progress and severely stunts their number sense development. Students who learn procedures from parents, other teachers and from commercial tutoring companies show a decrease in computational fluency and make many errors. Remember that speed is not the same as depth of conceptual understanding. Procedural knowledge is also not the same as conceptual understanding.
Amy’s work focuses on conceptual development in mathematics. Students will not be taught straight procedures but will be developing strategies through number sense development. Strategy development is the mathematical understanding that is developed by the child (or adult!) and stays with them forever. Please do your best to refrain from teaching procedures as that will interfere with your child’s progress. Instead, interact with your child by asking questions about their thinking and do less “telling.”
While tutoring is aimed to increase success and self-confidence with mathematics, it is not always appropriate to work on class homework in tutoring sessions as there are typically goals to work on in order to increase success on and access to grade level work. In other words, our work together is aimed to eventually give your child successful access to the grade level content. However, please always feel free to bring any assignments and to share your observations as well as classroom teacher observations. This is always helpful!
Progress in mathematics is always interesting and exciting to observe. Often, progress is slow and then takes a LEAP! Keep communicating with me and asking questions if you are wondering about anything!
Tutoring sessions consist of a lot of game play! Games reduce students’ math anxiety and allow for mental strategy development without the same pressures they might experience with schoolwork.
Assessments that Amy uses are interview-based. This means that your child will not be writing during these assessments. These assessments allow me to gauge the type of math thinking your child naturally gravitates to, their strengths and areas in need of development.
Note that I am unable to make any learning diagnoses based on my work with your student.
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