Using CTC Math Like a Math Tutor in Your Homeschool
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A child’s struggle with math can be frustrating for the whole family, especially if you homeschool! When frustration takes over (and parental attempts to help only add to the confusion), the idea of a math tutor can seem awfully appealing!
Unfortunately, for many of us, hiring a personal math tutor just isn’t feasible in terms of time and money (especially money). Fortunately, there are some resources for homeschooling families that can help. In particular, CTC Math is a curriculum that offers all of the customized support of a math tutor, without the big bill.
CTC Math offers an all-in-one math curriculum for K-12th grade that is customizable, self-paced, and keeps track of everything you need for your homeschool records! Today we’re talking about how you can use CTC Math like a virtual math tutor in your home (but for a lot less money)! Interested? Read on.
1. Easy to Customize for Every Student in Your Home
Just like a great math tutor customizes learning for each individual student, the CTC Math program gives you a way to easily customize your child’s lesson plans to target their strengths and weaknesses. In fact, you can opt to have profiles, each with customized lesson plans, logins, and progress reports, for up to 10 individual students.
The parent also has a login, where you get to select the lessons that your child (or children) will work on. What I love about this is that you can select different topics and lessons from any grade level that suits you.
This allows you to incorporate problem area review/practice (possibly from a younger grade level) into other content that is on track, or even above your student’s grade level. That’s the beauty of having access to math content from K-12!
For example, say you have a child in 5th grade who is mostly on track, but still struggles with beginner-level fractions that he or she may have encountered in 2nd grade. CTC will allow you to build a lesson plan (or even an exam) that slips in some lower-level fraction lessons with their otherwise 5th-grade content, giving them that extra practice they need in that one area.
The best part is, you (the parent) can hide grade level information, so your student doesn’t have to stress about what “grade” they are working at. This also goes for if you have an advanced math student, but you don’t want him or her to feel too much awareness about being ahead.
This allows students to just focus on math, without the added pressure that they often put on themselves about being “behind” or “ahead.” I know that, for my 9-year-old, she often puts pressure on herself when grade levels are involved, and taking that visual out of her CTC lessons works well for us! This is why using CTC as a math tutor is so helpful.
As the parent, you have your own login, which shows you a dashboard where you can easily view what every student in your home has done, how they performed, and what needs work! It is really easy to select lessons and oversee the process, and CTC Math does the rest.
2. Appeals to a Multitude of Learning Styles
A good math tutor tries to incorporate a student’s learning style, right? One of my favorite things about using CTC Math in our homeschool is that it effectively targets every learning style in lessons that are concise and easy to understand. This is also one of my daughter’s favorite things about it. We’ve dabbled in other online math lessons, and she finds the CTC explanations to be really clear and simple, while keeping her attention.
This is great, especially for younger elementary learners or students with a short attention span.
When students log in to their CTC account, they will see the lessons that you (the parent) have selected from CTC’s math library for them to complete. Once they select one, that lesson is taught and demonstrated with a short video lesson that is usually around 4 minutes long.
The video includes easy-to-understand audio and plenty of visual demonstrations, too! (As a bonus, the math instructor/CTC founder who narrates the videos, Pat Murray, has a really cool Australian accent.)
After watching the video, students get to practice what they’ve learned with problems, which adds a kinesthetic component. Answers are marked correct or incorrect right away, encouraging children to figure out what has gone wrong instead of continuing to reinforce an incorrect approach.
In just a few minutes of doing a lesson, children have received an auditory, visual, and kinesthetic introduction to a new math concept!
3. Frees up Some of Your Time and Energy as a Homeschool Parent
This is a big one! Homeschool parents are always busy, especially in the elementary years when we typically have to teach all subjects one-on-one. It is really nice to find an effective and simple way to outsource a subject for younger kids, especially if that subject is a source of frustration for your child(ren).
One of the top benefits of using CTC Math for homeschool parents is that it automates most of the lesson planning, grading, and progress tracking. Once you create the lesson plans from the math library, CTC takes care of the rest. (Kind of like a math tutor.) Your job with teaching math then becomes that of an overseer, checking in on your children’s progress, successes, and struggles, and choosing the lessons accordingly.
And it’s really easy for children to use, even little ones! My daughter has minimal experience with computers, but she loves getting to use it for CTC Math. It’s easy for her to work her way down the lessons I have selected from her profile, and it makes her feel cool getting to use my computer.
At the same time, I appreciate that I can do other things while she tackles math, like spend some hands-on playtime with my toddler, or get some work done!
The program’s detailed reports and automated grading system provide you with everything you need to ensure your child is progressing, without requiring constant oversight. If you go a couple of days without logging into your parent account, CTC will send the progress reports to your e-mail.
4. Removes the Relational Conflict that Can Come with Math
As I mentioned, math can often be a source of tension between parents and children, especially when a child is a little younger and is struggling with feelings of frustration. It can unfortunately be easy for children to take out those stressful feelings on the parent who is trying to help them.
CTC Math can alleviate this stress by providing clear, consistent instruction from a third party. Again, this is part of the appeal of a math tutor! Furthermore, when your child can learn from the program’s video tutorials and practice exercises, they have no one to be frustrated with. And you, from looking at their progress and reports, may be able to get a clearer vision of where the trouble spots are without a lot of relational conflict.
This can help maintain a positive and supportive atmosphere in your home.
5. It’s Rewarding for Students to Use and Simple for Parents
Keeping students engaged and invested in their math lessons is a really important part of keeping them on track, and CTC Math is designed to be engaging and motivating for students. This comes through in several ways:
- The ability to customize the level of lessons.
- The short, easy-to-understand videos and practice questions.
- The visual celebrations when mastery is reached.
- The automatic grading, so students can see how they did immediately.
I know my daughter, a gamer, responds really well to this “gamified” approach, and I think that is the case for many kids! The immediate reinforcement, and celebratory responses, allow learners to feel successful as they make progress.
For parents, the platform is straightforward to use, with a comprehensive dashboard that allows you to monitor your child’s progress easily. The detailed reports and progress tracking features make it simple to stay on top of your child’s math education, even if you have multiple students using the program. I don’t have a large family, but I can imagine this simplifies things exponentially more for homeschooling parents who do! It would be much easier to log in and see progress for 7 kids at once than checking 7 individual math books by hand!
6. Go At Your Own Pace (Any Time of the Day that Works for you!)
One of the things that makes hiring a math tutor impractical for some people is trying to figure out scheduling, especially if you have a large family. Having someone come to your home means you feel like you have to clean or wait around (if you’re like me!) Going to a tutoring center and waiting can also be tricky if you have other kids and/or other extracurricular activities. Plus, you can’t just go see your math tutor anytime your student runs into problems with math.
With that in mind, one of the biggest advantages of CTC Math is its flexibility. The program allows students to learn at their own pace. If your child needs to spend more time mastering a concept, he or she can spend as long as needed on that concept. As mentioned, you can even pull lessons on the concept from multiple grade levels, starting more simply and building confidence as he or she moves up.
It’s also nice, particularly for homeschool families with varying schedules, to be able to access the program any time of day. Whether your child prefers to study early in the morning or late at night, CTC Math is available 24/7, allowing them to work on their math lessons whenever it suits them best.
7. You Can’t Beat the Price for What You Get!
And of course, the biggest struggle with hiring a math tutor, for most people, is money! On average, you can expect to pay around $40-$50 an hour for a good math tutor. Most homeschool families in today’s economy simply cannot spend $200 a month for 4 hours of math instruction for one child.
CTC Math, by contrast, offers incredible value, especially for homeschooling families. Since this is a post about math, let’s break down the numbers!
Regular Cost:
For one student, the cost is $39.90 monthly or $257 yearly, and for multiple students, it’s $59.90 monthly or $397 yearly. This plan covers up to 10 students, making it an excellent option for larger families.
Special Homeschool Pricing:
However, homeschoolers benefit from an even better deal, with a 50% discount, bringing the cost down to just $198 for the entire year for multiple students from K-12. This pricing is insanely affordable when you consider the program’s comprehensive and customizable nature. If you have four children using CTC Math, that makes each of their math curricula just $50 for the whole year, which is an amazing deal for a math curriculum, let alone one that can function like a virtual math tutor!
CTC Math offers a comprehensive, flexible, and affordable solution for homeschool families, with access to a library of lessons from K-12. It not only meets the needs of diverse learners with concise lessons, immediate reinforcement, and a multi-sensory approach. It also alleviates the stress that often comes with teaching math at home.
If you’re looking for a math curriculum that feels like having a private tutor on hand—without spending much money—CTC Math might be the solution you’ve been looking for in your homeschool! Learn more, and get special homeschool pricing, here.
Katie Gustafson has been a member of the world of “weird, unsocialized homeschoolers” for a long time–first as an alumnus and now as a homeschooling mom to a fiercely fun little girl! She’s very into anything creative, especially writing, dancing, and painting. She’s also particularly passionate about literature and owns more books than she will probably ever be able to read. However, she reassures herself with the belief that, in the event of a digital apocalypse, she’s cultivating a much-needed physical library for future generations. Katie is happy to contribute articles to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers, Hip Homeschool Moms and Sparketh. She also has a personal blog on writewhereuare.com.