Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Regions Boston area - math tutor for PG first grader?

We're looking for a math tutor for our 7-year-old, who is extremely capable in math. He's just started algebra with Khan Academy, which is fine for what it is (and better than many algebra books), and we're working with him successfully for now. But sooner or later he will probably need the guidance of an actual, in-person adult who's not one of his parents.

His school (Birches) is fantastic for science and other subjects, and for helping him consolidate and apply the math he knows already. No complaints, really. But we cannot reasonably expect his teachers there to basically tutor him one-on-one, especially as he works his way into high school math and maybe beyond.

He's already involved in Math Circle at Harvard, but even that's not filling his need for math challenge. His group there consists of mostly kids that are several years older than he is, which results in "interesting" classroom dynamics... again, a one-on-one tutoring situation would probably work better for him! And our contacts there have not helped us find anyone in the Boston area who has experience tutoring kids this young.

So... help? Thanks! (Long-time lurker, infrequent poster, yada yada.)

Well, experience tutoring kids this young is a lot to ask when you also want the ability to teach advanced mathematics... A friend of mine in a similar situation near another good university employs a good undergraduate and that seems to be working - worth a try? Backed up with good material, so you're not asking for curriculum design, just mentoring and explanation as needed.

For the material I strongly recommend Art of Problem Solving - much deeper than what I've seen of Khan.

Thanks -- I'll take a look at the AoPS material. We've got all the Beast Academy books they've published so far, and he loves them! I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that their higher math material is good too.

It's a tall order, you're totally right about that. Needle in a haystack. But I've got to think we're not the only family in this situation -- whom have they worked with?

"In this situation" obviously means many different things - but my observation is that most families with mathematically very advanced children have at least one parent who is also mathematical enough to do the tutoring at least until the teen years. Of course there will be exceptions, and of course even if there is a capable parent there might be logistical reasons to outsource. Fwiw, with my mathematically advanced child, this is an issue that has faded - when he was young, it seemed clear there was no advantage in having someone else do what we could do, but we thought we might need a tutor later; now he's 10, it's clear that by the time he needs more than we can provide he'll be adept enough at learning from books/correspondence/random academics that it won't be a hard problem. I think the need you have may actually be rare.

I'm in the Boston area with a 2e/pg mathy 8-yr-old ds. He's being homeschooled though. So far, I've used used textbooks for algebra and geometry with answers in the back!

I don't have the math background and neither does my husband. We're both liberal arts people. My uncle and grandfather were mathy/engineers; unfortunately, though they're both dead (and a while). I'm considering ALEKS since it's so reasonable and another parent with two pg kids has used it - http://www.bookslinksandmore.org/.

I'll pm you - or please pm me!