Math Tutor Video Series

After homeschooling for almost 12 years, I had to stop recently to return to work due to a family illness and its lingering effects. While waiting for my children's public school enrollments to take affect, I continued to receive a few items from vendors to review for TOS magazine, free of charge, in exchange for my honest opinion of these items. Two videos from the Math Tutor company were among the supplies received.

Unfortunately, I was unable to use either dvd. One was a pre-algebra level and the other, a Texas Instruments Calculator usage video. None of my children are at the pre-algebra level and the oldest has not yet been introduced to any sort of specialty calculator. We did put them into the dvd player and watch each briefly, skimming through the chapters and seeing how these videos compared to others from this company.

While I was unable to dive into this set, my oldest son, who has used other videos from the Math Tutor series with great success, said both dvd's were very similar to previous lessons he had. Jason Gipson is the instructor on the dvd's, and he is thorough and works through problems slowly. By the time a child is done with a Math Tutor video, he or she should have a good grasp of the basics of the course. Mr. Gipson has a friendly, laid-back approach to math which helped my son get over some the anxiety he associates with it. We used the Algebra 1 and 2 dvd's with great success.

While not a lone program (the name "tutor" says it all), this is a great supplementary curriculum to add to your regular math program. Depending on how slow one moves, there are only a few months of lessons (maybe even days or weeks if the student is really fast) on each dvd. You can add the companion worksheet cd-roms to your video series to flesh it out a bit. But overall, it is not meant to be a complete, core curriculum. Use the Math Tutor series with a child struggling as an alternative to a pricey tutor and you'll likely be impressed.

The price for most dvd's is around $26 for 5-7 hours of video-much less than you'd pay a private tutor- and we found the dvd's we have used to be extremely user-friendly and helpful. Mr. Gipson has courses ranging from Basic Math all the way to Calculus 3 and Physics.

Visit www.MathTutorDVD.com to see detailed lists of what each video includes as well as samples of actual video clips. The site says "Raise grades or your money back." Give it a try!

-Lynn