Award-Winning Pre-Algebra Tutors serving Vancouver

We covered the last homework assignment, the test they just took, as well as this week's lessons. The first student did really well. She only missed a few problems on all of her work. Everything is starting to stick with her. I am very impressed by her progress. The second student is doing better. When she is relaxed she can do problems so easily, but the moment she gets stressed she makes mistakes. I remind to simply relax and take her time.

The student is working on rates and ratios right now. She had done some things before setting the basics (like defining rational numbers and converting between decimals and fractions) and performing operations with fractions. Now she is working on unit conversions and unit rates. She also was writing ratios in different forms (a to b, a:b, a/b) and telling whether a ratio was in simplest form. It's this last part that we spent the most time on. She was having a hard time reducing fractions. If it wasn't in its lowest form, she wanted to divide and convert it to a decimal. While there isn't technically anything wrong with what she did, all equivalent fractions would give that same decimal, and they are asking for the simplest fraction form that would yield that decimal. We did a matching exercise with reducing fractions. We also did some review over integer operations. She is still struggling with it, so I plan on doing a game next time to again target integer operations. She said she has gone from an F in math to a C+ so she is definitely making progress.

In today's session, I helped the student further prepare for tomorrow's semester final. We worked numerous problems involving equations of lines, rewriting equations in slope-intercept form, finding the slope, finding the y-intercept, and even branched off into the distributive property at his request.

First student: We reviewed inequality, using both equations, number lines and word problems translated to equations. She struggled with closed/open circles on number lines, but after I explained it further and she did a few practice problems from the book, she became confident and answered all the questions correctly. We also worked on isolating variables on one side of an equation. I stressed that she should write out all operations, and she was able to better keep track of the equation and solved the problems with ease. I reminded her to keep track of functions and positive and negative signs. Second student: We reviewed a recent test covering angles of intersecting lines, within triangles and within quadrilaterals. He had trouble naming angles, so we practiced with a set of intersecting lines; he got more comfortable as he kept track of the lines making the angles. We reviewed the difference between triangles and quadrilaterals, solving for missing angles. I recommended he practice on his tablet.

Today, I challenged the student to try some harder single variable problems using square roots and squared variables. We then reviewed percentages, and multiple ways to go between fractions and percentages. I tested her on the common percentages and her knowledge of simplifying fractions. I am trying to encourage her to use her deep thinking capabilities.

We reviewed factoring monomials from polynomials, difference of squares, and factoring quadratic expressions (regularly and by grouping). He is understanding things better and has shown improvement. He still needs practice, though.