“My son – 9 years old – has developed a lot of interest in math since enrolling in Thinkster. His confidence level is elevated and he has improved a lot in analytical and logical thinking. Everything is positive about Thinkster.” – Ranjhani B., Waterloo, CA
So, what exactly is it that parents and kids love? Why do kids continue with Thinkster year after year?
Well, here are the top ten (out of many!) reasons:
1. Matched with a dedicated Thinkster Math tutor (aka – a highly qualified, elite, certified math teacher!)
AI math tools adapt to how your child thinks, not just what they get w...
If your child needed tutoring, you used to have to travel to a learning center or let someone (who you didn’t know very well) into your house.
But with Thinkster Math, your child connects with an amazing elite math tutor conveniently and easily online. This tutor is determined to provide an impactful learning experience every day of the week.
How is your child matched with a tutor?
Do they always work with one tutor?
And, who is this math tutor?!
A) An Academic Advisor matches your child to a tutor. Our team chats with you and understands your learning objectives to assign a tutor that is the best match.
Does your child have a busy schedule and you prefer weekend tutoring sessions? Does your child have ADHD or dyslexia? Do you homeschool your child?
These are all examples of things parents share that help our advisors match a family to a tutor!
They customize the learning plan, review and grade assignments daily, modify the learning plan based on your child’s assignments and test performance, conduct 1:1 tutoring sessions…
Yeah, your child’s math tutor does a LOT! They’re involved in your child’s learning plan every day of the week!
Plus, working with only one tutor has massive benefits too! Your child’s math tutor develops a relationship with your child. This helps your child develop respect for their tutor and take greater accountability for their work.
C) A highly qualified, elite, and certified math teacher is something that you want in a math tutor.
Unfortunately, it’s not something that all math learning centers can necessarily guarantee.
Other learning centers may have a few qualified instructors on hand, but the supporting instructors might be high school or college students.
Wouldn’t you feel more comfortable having a certified teacher constantly helping your child?
This way, the person that works with your child is extremely familiar with the strategies, methods, and concepts that your child learns at school.
Experience with the curriculum and teaching go a long way! Our Thinkster Math tutors are all experienced math teachers. This means that they are very familiar with the strategies and topics taught at school. A Thinkster tutor is ready to help your child understand the math curriculum to the fullest!
2. Our world-class curriculum – which builds strong logical reasoning and critical thinking skills
When it comes to what your child is learning, you need to make sure that a math learning program checks off the following boxes:
Includes logical reasoning and critical thinking problems
Personalized to your child’s skill level
Relevant to what your child learns at school
Finding a math learning program that does all three is extremely important!
We start introducing word problems in our first-grade math curriculum so that kids begin developing these incredibly important analytical, critical thinking, and logical reasoning skills. (Which not all math learning programs actually guarantee to cover with their curricula).
This is because we want to help kids become incredibly strong thinkers so that they have all the skills needed for future successes! (Like getting into Harvard or any Ivy League School.)
To get your child there, your child’s math tutor personalizes and tailors the learning plan. Frequent assessments (see number 7 for more) allow your child’s math tutor to modify the learning plan based on your child’s performance and progress.
And the Thinkster Math tutor can align the learning plan with school work too!
This allows your child to get math help with relevant school concepts. The flexibility to align with school topics is not typically offered at all math learning centers.
3. Daily grading and feedback on assignments from your child’s dedicated math tutor
Imagine your child completes a homework assignment… and no one grades it.
They just complete their work and think that they answered every question correctly. They use a strategy or method and think that they’ve got it down.
What’s going to happen when they have to take a quiz at the end of the week?
Or, what if someone grades the assignment… but they grade it a week later?
By that point, your child is going to need to break the habit of incorrectly using a strategy or problem-solving method.
This is just one example of how a delay in feedback may hurt your child’s conceptual understanding and performance.
Daily grading and feedback is crucial to ensuring your child answers questions successfully.
That doesn’t mean that they simply just put a grade on your child’s work.
They actually review problems and put corrections on every incorrect question!
This level of feedback gives your child the chance to review work quickly and understand why they made a mistake.
4. Our patent-pending Active Replay Technology – which gives visualization into how your child solves problems
Digital programs in themselves are really cool. Kids love doing their work on a computer or tablet!
But, as a parent, you get access to something really cool with Thinkster too —
You get to see how your child answers questions!
When your child works on their Thinkster assignments, they show their work right on the screen. They can use their finger or a stylus as they answer questions on a computer or tablet screen.
After your child completes an assignment, you can go into the app and click a play button at the bottom of the question screen.
From there, you get to see how your child solved the problem with our patent-pending Active Replay Technology (ART).
Pretty cool, huh?
But what makes this feature even more valuable is how our tutors utilize it.
With ART, there’s no need for a math tutor to sit next to your child and look over their shoulder while they answer questions.
Instead, the Thinkster tutor simply hits a ‘play’ button and sees how your child solved the problem.
Does your child pause when answering a question because they feel confused? Do they start to answer a long division problem incorrectly, and then erase and start all over?
Our math tutors use this powerful feature to understand your child’s learning behavior, offer insightful feedback on assignments, and accelerate learning curves.
5. Video tutorials embedded into every practice assignment
How frustrating is it when your child throws a fit because they don’t understand how to answer a homework question?
When they’re frustrated, you really hear it!
To combat this frustration, your child needs support and math help at the point of learning. This means that they always have resources available when they’re working on an assignment.
Thinkster assignments embrace self-learning because we want to see how your child can stand on their own two feet as they complete their work.
But this doesn’t mean we want them to struggle and drown!
Every practice worksheet has at least one video tutorial available for your child to watch. The videos are short clips that show example questions and how to use the recommended problem-solving strategies for the assignment.
We also have conceptual tutorial videos if your child wants to brush up on foundational theories.
Constant access to our videos ensures minimizing your child’s frustrations to zero!
Check out one of our video tutorials on adding 4-digit numbers with regrouping:
6. Private, interactive math tutoring sessions with your dedicated tutor
Who does your child turn to when they need help understanding difficult math concepts?
Do they come to you for math help?
Do they attend a math learning center that gives them one-on-one attention?
Unfortunately, 1:1 private tutoring isn’t something that many math learning centers offer. (If they do, it probably costs you more money!)
Thinkster kids really enjoy working with their math tutor for weekly or biweekly private tutoring sessions.
The dedicated math tutor observes how your child solves math problems throughout the week. When your child shows up to the live tutoring session, the tutor is very well informed and prepared on the questions and concepts that your child had difficulties solving.
This is one of the big advantages of having a daily math tutor! The tutor comes to the session with valuable insight and feedback that is actionable and specific to actually help and fix problems for your child.
Plus, your child can use their tutoring time to review school homework questions or prep for tests — for no additional cost!
So, those tricky homework questions stumping you and your child… let the Thinkster Math tutor help!
Your child is also going to love using technology and interactive features for learning. They write on the screen in different color pens and use the microphone to chat with their math tutor.
7. Frequent Skills Assessments and Unit Tests to show learning mastery and proficiency
Your child’s Thinkster learning plan needs to help with both school-related topics and areas where they still need mastery.
To ensure that the learning plan is a true reflection of math proficiencies, your child takes Skills Assessments and Unit Tests. These tests show your child has mastered a topic and is ready to move forward to new material.
The Thinkster tutor reviews each test carefully, then updates the learning plan based on your child’s performance.
You get to quickly know the assessment results after every test too! There’s no guesswork with how your child performs and how they progress as a Thinkster.
8. Assessment and Progress Reports so that you can review your child’s performance
We mentioned how your child takes Thinkster assessments frequently to ensure that they demonstrate topic and concept mastery.
After every test, the Thinkster Math tutor emails you a downloadable PDF report.
This report shares incredibly valuable insights by breaking down performance at the concept level.
First, check your child’s Dynamic Progress Matrix. This matrix is an overall chart that shows your child’s current proficiency levels.
Second, review each concept with the Knowledge Progression Graph. This graph shows exactly how your child performed with each concept for every testing period!
You get these high-level reports with incredible insights after every assessment and test!
9. Data-driven insights on our Parent Insights App – available for you to review every day!
Want to quickly check if your child is on track with their learning plan?
Do you have a feeling that your child didn’t meet their required goal yesterday to complete 20 minutes of Thinkster work?
You can log into our Parent Insights App to review data-driven insights and check for yourself how your child is doing.
You can view your child’s worksheet accuracy percentage, how much time spent per assignment, the current Dynamic Progress Matrix, upcoming assignments in the learning plan, the tutor’s feedback on completed assignments, and more!
It’s a great way for you to stay in-the-know by quickly and easily checking an app on your cell phone.
10. Set 30-Day Objectives with your child’s math tutor
Parents and kids stick with Thinkster because measurable progress improvements are attainable and delivered by our math tutors.
Not only that, but it’s something that the tutor is transparent about with you!
The tutor works with you to set a 30-Day objective. This is so that your child has a monthly learning goal and understands what their assignment expectations are.
Your child needs to embrace the learning plan and work toward these objectives to become a rockstar Thinkster student.
A quick call or email to the coach ensures that the 30-day objective updates each month to reflect your new learning goals for your child.
When we work together as a team, you’ll see awesome learning improvements right on the Dynamic Progress Matrix and Knowledge Progression Graph!
Conclusion
Whew — and to think that this list is just the top ten reasons parents and kids love and stay with Thinkster!
There are even more exciting features with our program — like our Leaderboard and Reward Gift Cards — that keep kids motivated and engaged with their learning plans.
Because, at the end of the day, our goal is to help kids understand why math is so important AND that learning math can be fun!
Plus – Thinkster is a super convenient math tutoring option for kids and parents! (Check out more on how and why here).
Ready to see our math tutoring program for yourself? Be sure to register for our 7-day, zero $ trial. You and your child can dive right into Thinkster Math and try all the exciting features that other families love!
