How Individual Maths Tuition Helps Children

The way maths is taught in schools can leave many young people feeling bewildered and overwhelmed by some methods and facts they have to learn. Once a child's confidence or enthusiasm begins to dwindle it can be very difficult to keep up with the volume of work being expected of them.

Maths tuition can help to restore a pupil's 'can do' attitude by giving them individual help in assessing and improving their abilities in the important topics. Often a tutor will need to question a child carefully to find out what level of actual understanding they have before deciding on a course of action. For example, a child may be struggling to understand basic trigonometry or has covered the topic at school and forgotten how to do it. 

A tutor could work through a simple example to see how much the child remembered about the terminology and formulas they need to know. In this particular example, it may be the case that the child doesn’t understand how to rearrange formulas but is perfectly happy with the concept of trigonometry. The tutor would then focus on sorting out this problem before returning to its application to trigonometry. Every child is different, and the individualised help a tutor can provide will be very personalised.

A child with a tutor will also need to have the determination to learn the subject as well. A good tutor will provide structured questions and examples that the child will need to work through carefully. A tutor is not best employed doing a child’s school homework but should be ensuring that they know how to do that homework on their own.

Schools are under pressure to get through a list of topics in a fixed time, and this usually means there isn’t enough time to cover topics in detail and show children how topics are related. Highly qualified maths teachers are also sadly in short supply in schools adding to the difficulties in providing a thorough education on this important subject.

 

Filed Under: Maths Confidence Results Pass Exams