Mathnasium

[Anonymous]

I've heard a few people mention Mathnasium over the past few days. Do you recommend it? What has been your experience with it?

[Anonymous]

It’s a good program. There’s a lot of threads on Mathnasium if you search the forum history.

[Anonymous]

My ds who is excellent at math and who has worked at different jobs successfully, got fired from a Mathnasium center with no notice. As in, he was told at the end of a shift to not come back. The firing came through an employee, not the manager, and then ds reached out to the manager who ghosted ds for a while. Then they refused to pay ds his remaining paychecks for awhile. Wouldn’t recommend working there!

[Anonymous]

Parts of what they do seem to work well. As an example, they have an initial assessment that determines children’s knowledge gaps. (Though I do think the way they score the assessment tends to make parents believe that typical children are actually “behind.”) They have a standard scope and sequence, so a child is less likely to come out of tutoring with a skills deficit in an important topic. They also teach kids until they have mastered a skill, so the pacing matches children’s natural learning rate.

That said, there are downsides too. The model of moderate supervision tends to work best for competent kids whose families want them to advance. It’s not the best fit for a kid who is already anxious about math. I don’t know that they differentiate well for leaning differences or developmental disabilities. Their reward system rewards volume of work completed rather than effort or mastery directly.

It’s more direct instruction and supervision than Khan Academy, but it’s less customized and supportive than a private tutor. (But not every kid needs the intensity of regular private tutoring in order to succeed.)

[Anonymous]

We did it while I homeschooled 3rd grade. It was fine but a lot of worksheets DD did by herself, she was kind of left to do it unless she actually asked for help. They didn’t do multiplication tables at all which is a big thing in 3rd grade so I did that at home myself. We did the one in Columbia MD.

[Anonymous]

One child used it to keep up with woth a tough (for them) math class, later another child used it to skip a year of mcps class (their choice, not mine)