“Thinkster Math Did It in 1 year What Kumon Could Not do in 3 years!”
Note: The following is a first-hand account from a Thinkster Math parent and their experience with our math...
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Last Updated on August 31, 2021 by Thinkster
We’re excited to share more about the experience Thinkster Math parent, Jane, has had with us. Jane has had two children in the program, and her son recently graduated from Thinkster Math!
Our team and his tutor, Yvonne, are incredibly proud of his accomplishments and excited to see and hear more about his future academic and life successes!
Here’s Jane’s story about stumbling upon Thinkster Math and the experience her children and family have had from the start:
I first heard about Thinkster Math when I was at the end of my rope.
My 13 year old son had had a private tutor for a few years now, trudging through his homework every night with either his tutor or my husband or me. It was expensive, and other than helping him just get through his 6th and 7th years, I wasn’t convinced he was really improving his understanding of the more fundamental nature of math and problem-solving.
To make things worse, my 10 year old daughter – who had always excelled in math – was beginning to falter at school and needing help with her homework every night.
My husband and I were exhausted, feeling hopeless, and financially tapped out.
My kids are both sweet and big-hearted, and we live in a “good” school district. Yet somehow, the schools were teaching math in a way that both my children weren’t grasping the concepts and falling behind.
It may sound funny but it was true: we were living in secret terror.
Knowing how stressed we were, a fellow mom from my daughter’s school sent me a link to a New York Times article she had read.
It talked about a math app called Thinkster (although it had a different name when the article was published), and at first, I was like, math app? My kids need more help than a robot with online worksheets.
Our son, especially, needs more. He has severe ADHD, memory, and executive functioning issues.
But the mom told me she had started her own daughter on it and was so far very impressed.
She shared its secret: the “app” wasn’t just a bot mindlessly putting my kids through worksheets.
There was an actual teacher, a real-live person, on the other end!
This person not only corrected and gave feedback on her kid’s completed worksheets almost every night, but tutored her every week through conference video.
My ears perked up.
Really?
It sounded too good to be true. Plus, learning a new app AND dealing with a human being sounded like a lot of work!
Regardless, we set up our first meet-and-greet call with our assigned tutor, Yvonne, who was enthusiastic and easy to work with, and I had my kids do the app’s diagnostic tests. There was something about the way the test problems were worded: the wording was clear, straightforward, refreshingly challenging but positive in tone.
Both my daughter and son scored in the 80s for their diagnostic grades.
“Okay”, I thought, “pretty much where my husband and I thought they might be.”
We would give the program a real go.
I signed up for plans for both my kids and their weekly tutoring sessions were scheduled with Yvonne.
Since then, it’s been a race to the top with both my son and daughter. My husband and I never thought a math app could make such a huge difference in our lives! Yvonne has become one of our most favorite people in the world. She showers both of our kids with warmth, encouragement, and clear instruction and additional help. She is an angel. If we had scoured all of Los Angeles for a teacher like her, I doubt we could have found one.
My son has gone from consistent and painful 40-60% scores on his worksheets to 90-100% on every…single…one.
His confidence has gone through the roof! My daughter, who started with mostly 80% scores on her worksheets, is now 100% for the last six topics. It’s crazy.
The best part: they’re starting to LIKE MATH.
We never thought we’d see that.
My kids begin their day opening up their apps and reviewing all of Yvonne’s comments overnight and going through any problems that gave them trouble. They watch any supplemental, SHORT videos that take them through new topics. Yvonne takes them through any new concepts she knows from her experience may need a little more human hand-holding to reach success. The kids can “raise their hands” on any questions or worksheets they find particularly difficult. Yvonne sees all of their scratch work because it’s all in the app!
And on top of it all, my kids can get downright competitive and see where other kids are scoring on the same worksheets they’re working on and push themselves. They even get to pick $5 gift cards for the month if they score enough points from their work! The smiles on their faces when they earn a gift card from Amazon… it’s priceless.
Throughout the process, whenever we’ve needed to review their study plans and adjust based on our family’s goals and the kids’ progress, Yvonne’s been there to help on her end and lend her watchful eye, changing the order of worksheets or accelerating them.
I cannot recommend Thinkster enough!!! I’m positive that with the amount of research I’ve done, there’s nothing like it out there for parents and families like us. Nothing. We’ve tried other internationally known programs where you have to show up and do classes and tons of worksheets and the progress has never been close to this.
The fact that they get human feedback every night so that you don’t have to wait a week to find out what you did wrong and why is hugely important. And it’s a bargain compared to tutors and after school classes!
I can’t thank everyone at Thinkster enough. It’s self-evident that our kids will never be the same. They’re confident, calmer when they approach difficult problems, and able to tackle things logically and step-by-step. They’ve also learned discipline with their work, a skill that they’ll use for the rest of their lives. I have tears in my eyes as I write this.
Thinkster works because it stays human, compassionate, and easy to comprehend at its core, and remembers that the little people on the other end are human too.