Anyone been to Mathnasium?

[mnemom]

What did you think of it? It's quite expensive, but I thought it might be a good way to help dd review what she learned this year in math. I also felt like a fresh face (i.e., not me!) might help her a bit.

 

If you have been there, what did you think of the program? Did you feel that your child made progress? Were you impressed with the materials and teaching?

 

Thanks!

[MyHandsAreFull]

We used it for about 3 or 4 months. Got interrupted by summer (my dd [then 7] went away to camp for a month) and we just never went back. She really liked it and actually has asked to go back but it's just hard to fit in the schedule and it was more of an enrichment activity.

 

We had started with Kumon, did that for about 8 months, and she just hated the endless drills and busy-work. It seemed that Kumon wasn't very flexible and even when it was obvious she had mastered a concept she still had to plow through endless drills. It got to where she cried when it was time to pull out the Kumon and work on it. Also, the Kumon center was always packed with kids and they seemed to employ high school kids for most of the "teaching", with a student teacher ratio of like 20 to 1. I didn't feel like I got my money's worth (in our area, $120/month per subject), even though it cost only 1/2 what Mathnasium cost.

 

On the other hand, she really liked Mathnasium. The problems were often more thought/insight-oriented and allowed her to have those "Aha!" moments. She liked that the teachers there gave her more attention (basically 1:1 for small periods of time, say 5 min, and then she'd have an opportunity to do whatever problems they assigned, then when she finished or if she hit a snag she could raise her hand and they'd come back to help her). She enjoyed the problems at Mathnasium and liked that they would let her advance when she demonstrated mastery, not when she had completed some preset number of drill pages. The franchise near us is owned and run by a nice family and they rarely had more than 6 or 7 kids in at a time. It cost us like $240/month when you did the month-to-month plan, and that included 3 visits (30 min per visit) week. They don't have homework like the Kumon does. She'd pretty happily go back, for sure. For now, we're just doing IXL.com for enrichment problems.

[VeteranMom]

We used Mathnasium last year. My dd, then 8, was still in public school. I knew she was struggling, but I had no idea what concepts she didn't understand and didn't want to waste time reviewing things that she already knew. Mathnasium helped identify all of her weaknesses and came up with a plan. Her math scores definitely went up. The tutors were helpful and encouraging. I'd use them again if I felt like she needed some help.