My Tutoring Routine for Math

Math was never easy for me as a kid. When I became a teacher, it was the subject matter I was most nervous about teaching. How could I possibly teach students to feel confident in math when I’ve never felt confident with the subject myself? My current tutoring practice has really given me a chance to experiment and explore how to make challenging subjects engaging for kids. Here’s what an hour math tutoring session looks like…

1. Warm-up

About four years ago, I was lucky enough to be exposed to Cognitively Guided Instruction in Math. I was taught to begin a math lesson with a short warm-up activity to get my students to start thinking about numbers in different ways. I slowly incorporated activities like How Many Ways?, Choral Counting, Alike/Different, etc. before diving into a lesson. These warm-ups eased my students into mathematical thinking, and gave them opportunities to share their observations about numbers. It became my favorite part of my math block! I use these activities in the same way in my tutoring practice as I did in the classroom setting. We observe, we think, we share. We become mathematicians.

2. Math Game

Now that I have my tutee in a mathematical mindset, I want to keep him/her in engaged. What better way to do that than with a math game! I’m pretty sure this is my students’ favorite part of the session. We play games to review and/or introduce mathematical concepts. In the hour-long tutoring session, playing the game takes up the most time. However, playing the game is so memorable that I can reference the concept learned from the game when we get into the actual mini-lesson. My students have been able to use what they learned in the game and apply it to more traditional ways of working with numbers.

3. Mini-lesson

This is the nitty gritty of my math tutoring session. Concepts, skills, and strategies are directly taught during the mini-lesson. Generally, I teach a concept first. In the following sessions, I’ve will explicitly teach the skills and strategies related to that concept. This is the most straight-forward part of my tutoring session.

4. Activity

To wrap up the hour-long math session, I will have an activity that encourages a slow-release to independent practice. I will prepare four different problem-solving opportunities. In the first problem, the student watches me as I talk through solving a problem. I demonstrate how to use what we learned in the mini-lesson in an actual problem. Next, we talk through a problem together. I guide the student as we share our thinking through each step. Finally, the student completes a problem while I observe. I have found this “I do, we do, you do” method to be very effective in helping to students gain confidence to problem-solve independently.

Whether you are a classroom teacher, tutor, instructional coach, or parent, I would love to know what your procedures and strategies are for teaching math to your elementary students. I really would like for this blog to develop into a place where anyone who works with elementary school kids can come to share and get ideas. Make sure you leave a comment and share about our growing community. Happy teaching!