Middle School Math Tutoring
Tailored, one-on-one lessons that help middle school students master the foundational concepts they need to succeed independently in middle and high school math. We offer online lessons to reach students everywhere.
Why students need support
Brave Math is for students who get frustrated by math, have had math tutors before, or skip a grade of math. I recommend Brave Math tutoring to middle school students who are:
Challenged by factors, division, fractions, or decimals (6th - 7th grades).
First, we’ll make sure your student mastered the foundations for fractions and decimals: multiplication, factors, and division. From there, we’ll tune-up the content they found challenging and get ahead on what’s next.
Challenged by ratios, negative numbers, expressions, equations, or inequalities (7th - 8th grades).
We’ll double back to the foundational math concepts that made the content covered in class challenging for your student, then set the stage for mastery in high school with some pre-algebra content.
Motivated to master algebra and advanced math in high school (8th grade).
Soon your student will be solving and graphing linear equations, quadratic equations, and functions. We’ll make sure they’ve fully mastered all of the foundational math concepts that build up to high school math.
Why the support matters
Middle school is when many math learners begin to get frustrated. Concepts taught in class require mastery of the concepts taught in earlier years, so student performance begins to vary. Some students master content as it’s taught and other students just get by, despite the effort they’re putting in.
Students who struggle with middle school math most often have gaps in their understanding foundational math concepts. To succeed independently going forward, they should master those math foundations, and tune-up the concepts that were challenging in class. While there may be years of math foundations to tune-up, students still have years of math class ahead of them.
The Brave Math approach
Rather than covering homework and upcoming tests with your student, each lesson teaches the math skills and confidence they need to succeed without the continued support of a math tutor. Lessons move at your student’s pace, starting where math makes sense and ending when they’re no longer needed.
The goals of lessons are to:
Build strong math foundations. We’ll arm your student with the conceptual and mechanical understanding they need to master more advanced concepts with confidence.
Bridge the gap for mastering classwork. We’ll reenforce the content your student hasn’t yet mastered and will continue on until we’ve introduced the content they’ll learn next.
Promote self-reliance. Over time, your student will develop the skill set and confidence they need to independently succeed in math class without the need for more lessons.
Rajni Rao, founder and tutor, started Brave Math after observing why students in her middle school math classes in Sacramento, CA and Washington, D.C. weren’t able to master new content. Prior to teaching, Rajni attended Thomas Jefferson High School, graduated from the University of Virginia, and earned her Masters in Education from Loyola Marymount University.
Testimonials
“My daughter went into 7th grade with major gaps in her math knowledge. I chose Rajni as a tutor because I liked her approach: identify her math gaps through testing, focus on getting her caught up, and then give her the option to stop tutoring. In three months, my daughter was not only caught up, she was doing well on her assessments at school.”
“My daughter met with Rajni for an hour weekly, she was quickly able to evaluate the pieces that my daughter was missing and struggling with and make a plan to “fill in the blanks.” Eight months later my daughter is much more confident in math as consistently earning good grades.”
“My son has always loved math. Starting 6th grade he seemed to be a little behind and I saw him losing confidence in his math skills. We were referred to Rajni and she has truly done an awesome job in giving him the tools for him to be successful.”
“Rajni tutored my daughter all summer between 6th and 7th grade in preparation for starting Algebra. She quickly identified the gaps in what she had learned in school and tackled them. My daughter’s confidence was growing with each session and she looked forward to going!”
“I was grades behind in my math and have been catching up with tremendous speed... I have never once felt judged for my level of math or not grasping a concept quickly enough.”
FAQ
How long will tutoring last? Students make a long-term commitment to learn years of math content in an accelerated, condensed format. The journey looks different for each student. The most important considerations are how many foundational concepts we need to cover, how quickly they master content during sessions, and how frequently we meet. After an initial consultation, we can set goals for your student.
Is there any homework? Some of the concepts covered will require reinforcement outside of lessons. For those concepts, I’ll encourage students to spend about thirty minutes per week practicing problems, prioritizing their schoolwork over this homework as needed.
Will this fix their math grade? Brave Math is a long-term play for grades, focused on building your student’s mastery of math. Sometimes grades also need a short-term play, so I can recommend tutoring services to help students with their immediate homework and test prep needs.
How do you accommodate students with learning differences? I have experience working with students with IEPs and 504s, and with a variety of learning differences, including ADHD, dyslexia, autism, and math-specific learning disabilities. In our sessions, I move at the student’s pace to cover strategies that help students with memory and processing challenges, and reinforce those strategies via repetition. Additionally, I cover executive functioning strategies that build confidence and communication skills so that students can advocate for themselves when learning math.
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