Mathnasium conquers end-of-summer math woes

The new school year will bring many challenges for children as they get used to more difficult work in all their classes, and few subjects build on the prior year’s work as much as math.

Many children simply aren’t ready to pick up where they left off.

“Taking the summer off is good for children in some ways; they come back to school relaxed and refreshed. But they also come back rusty in their academic subjects – none more so than math,” said Daniel Karp, owner of Mathnasium of the Five Towns, www.mathnasium.com/fivetowns.

“Kids who have spent the summer without solving problems, calculating answers and checking their work not only need to refresh their memories on key concepts but need time to build their math muscles back up,” he said. “For many children, this can result in poor performance in the early part of the academic year,”

One solution is some additional math work prior to the start of the school year and into the early fall months. This helps children warm up their math muscles and recall those important concepts from the prior year they may no longer remember.

Mathnasium, for example, provides students with customized programs that, with two or three hours a week of study, can shake off the fog of summer and prepare them for the rigors of their math curriculum.

Mathnasium students have shown significant increases in performance on standards-based tests in 20 sessions or fewer, the equivalent of a few months’ work.

“Some students have the ability to start the new academic year and keep up with their math classes by reviewing older material on their own and doing enough problems to bring their math muscles back into shape,” added Karp. “But in our experience, many kids struggle.

“A program of structured study at Mathnasium or elsewhere can make all the difference between starting off well and having a difficult year,” Karp emphasized. “Over the summer, our students’ get so excited when they are introduced to and understand new topics that they know they’ll be required to work on throughout the coming year.”

Check out Mathnasium of the Five Towns, 414 Central Ave., Cedarhurst, (516) 569-1500, mathnasium.com/fivetowns