Mathnasium is a lot like a gym. Those that struggle don’t want to go, but once they get there they realize how beneficial it is. Different curriculum offerings are even called Power Math Workouts. Mathnasium, a franchise tutoring center for students in first to 12th grade, uses a membership model where students can come in any time of the month, without appointments, and get the help they need to improve their math skills.
Anand Pitre and his wife Priya own the Doral location for Mathnasium and have now opened a center in the Royal Oaks plaza in Miami Lakes, 15410 N.W. 77 Court.
“We were looking for a city which had a good sense of community, closely-knit families, where word of mouth is alive and well,” said Pitre. “We looked at cities like Miami Beach, North Miami, Aventura Kendall … but ultimately we decided Miami Lakes was the best location.”
The Mathnasium Method, which drives the program, is founded on the basic principle of number sense, not the rote memorization often taught to math students across the nation.
“You forget things easily, but what you understand stays with you forever,” said Pitre.
Pitre, who has a background of over 25 years in working for companies like IBM and City Bank’s information technology department, said that the Mathnasium curriculum helped him improve his own math skills. An example of number sense versus rote memorization is multiplication tables, which are often memorized, but when the concept of multiplication is explained as repeated addition it is easily understood.
Parents and students at Mathnasium can expect to see improvements in foundational gaps and in current schoolwork and assignments. Both foundational and urgent learning are incorporated into each session so pressing obstacles like homework are addressed, as well as the building of basic learning skills and number sense to better prepare students for the cumulative nature of mathematics.
“The biggest challenge we see is the ability to finish your work, especially now with state assessments like the EOC,” said Pitre. “Something that slows down students is lack of number sense. If you’re able to look at a problem and figure out things mentally instead of taking multiple steps, efficiency and speed improve. Students also learn to quickly evaluate answers and determining if they are reasonable.”
New students to Mathnasium are given an assessment test upon beginning the program and receive a partial assessment after a handful of weeks to determine improvements. Pitre has seen an average of 25 percent improvement for assessments and as high as 60 percent improvement after 8 to 10 weeks.
Each assessment and all the practice material offered at Mathnasium are customized to fit the needs of each individual student so no student is taught anything they already know. All instruction is one-on-one in a team setting. Instructors are also rigorously tested to make for a talented and skillful teaching staff.
Mathnasium offers after school instruction for those struggling in math but also offers enrichment learning for those who are mathematically gifted. Mathnasium is open Monday through Thursday from 3 to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Memberships offered are priced according to elementary math, middle school math, Algebra 1 and higher, and for short-term, month-to-month, 6 month and 12 month plans. For more information visit
www.mathnasium.com/miamilakes.