Elementary Learning Program

Our Elementary Learning Program (ELP) for grades 1 through 5 will advance your child’s core skills in math, reading, and writing. Meeting 1-to-1 with a private tutor, students work through our custom curriculum at their own pace for enrichment specifically tailored to them. This is a regularly-scheduled program, but the personalized nature means that students can begin at anytime in the year.

Like Kumon and Mathnasium, students meet twice a week to work through the curriculum, but General Academic surpasses these and other franchise learning centers as students meet privately with one of our brilliant tutors and follow our expertly crafted curriculum.

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Format and Cost

We’ll begin with a consultation with you to discuss your student’s strengths and weaknesses, and then the tutor administers a series of diagnostics in the first several sessions to establish expectations and goals for your student’s needs. From there, the tutor takes your student through our curriculum and materials at your student’s pace, which includes addressing any issues with their current schoolwork. Your student can meet with their tutor in our office or in your home.

Our program is designed to engage students year-round and is structured as:

  • Meeting twice a week for 1-hour each time
  • Split 30 minutes for math and 30 minutes for reading and writing in each session
  • Homework is assigned after each session

To ensure schedule integrity and consistency with the same tutor, we strongly recommend that the days and times of these sessions remain the same throughout the program.

Each 1-hour, private tutorial starts at just $80/hour when meeting at our office or $95/hour when meeting in-home. Exact hourly rates depend on the tutor and scheduling frequency.

Curriculum Highlights

Our Elementary Learning Program tutors have experience with and are specifically trained to work with grade 1 through 5 students to:

  • Work ahead and challenge their skills
  • Supplement and reinforce class material
  • Remediate weaknesses and help them reach their full potential
  • Develop the speed and confidence they’ll need to excel on standardized testing

  • Math – Developing fluency with
    • Number sense up to 120
    • Measuring tools and analyzing different lengths
    • Money fundamentals
    • Place values
    • Basic fractions
    • Word problems
    • Simple data analysis
  • Reading – Developing fluency in
    • Reading stories and short paragraphs
    • Sight words
    • Challenging vocabulary words
    • Reading comprehension (e.g. identifying main ideas, characters, and plots)
  • Writing – Refining
    • Handwriting
    • Spelling (written and spoken)
    • Oral skills
    • Grammar
    • Sentence structure
    • Writing process (brainstorm, plan, write, check, edit)

  • Math – Develop fluency with
    • Number sense for double-digit numbers
    • Basic multiplication
    • Perimeter and area of shapes
    • Money fundamentals
    • Data analysis
    • Fractions
    • Word problems
  • Reading – Demonstrate fluency in
    • Reading stories and short paragraphs
    • Sight words
    • Challenging words
    • Reading comprehension (e.g identifying key details, recounting stories, and identifying different points of view) 
  • Writing – Strengthen ability to
    • Write pieces in different literary styles (e.g. persuasive, narrative, and informative paragraphs)
    • Plan drafts, use linking words, and write a concluding sentence or paragraph
    • Recount experiences and gather information from sources to answer a question

  • Math – Refine skills in
    • Multiplication
    • Division
    • Metric system fundamentals
    • Estimation
    • Fractions (i.e. add/subtract/compare)
    • Comparing and classifying polygons
    • Data analysis
    • Distributive and commutative properties
    • Word problems
  • Reading – Develop accuracy and fluency with
    • Reading texts
    • Recounting stories (i.e. identifying the main idea and explain how it is conveyed through key details)
    • Answering questions to demonstrate understanding of a text
    • Developing annotating and note-taking skills to foster active reading
    • Determining the meaning of words using context clues, distinguishing literal and nonliteral definitions
  • Writing – Gain proficiency in
    • Write in persuasive, informative, and narrative styles developed with facts, definitions, and details
    • Distinguish between points of view
    • Strengthen command of standard English conventions
    • Conduct short research projects
    • Write over both short and extended periods of time

  • Math – Develop fluency in
    • Double-digit multiplication
    • Long division
    • Basics of decimals
    • Money amounts as decimals
    • Fractions (Multiply/divide)
    • Data analysis,
    • Word problems
    • Measuring angles
    • Symmetry,
    • Unit conversions
    • Basic geometry (e.g area/perimeter of triangles and squares)
  • Reading – Gain fluency with
    • Making inferences from details and examples in a text
    • Describing in depth a character, setting, or event in a story
    • Identifying the overall structure of texts (i.e chronology, cause/effect, and comparisons)
    • Using context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding
    • Developing annotating and note-taking skills to foster active reading
  • Writing – Strengthen command of
    • Producing clear and coherent writing that is appropriate for particular tasks, purposes, and audiences
    • Conducting short research projects
    • Explaining ideas, concepts, and events in a text (e.g. what happened and why based on specific information in the text)
    • Planning, revising, and editing original work

  • Math – Gain fluency in
    • Comparing decimals through addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division
    • Finding least common multiple and greatest common denominator
    • Order of operations (i.e. PEMDAS)
    • Solving algebraic equations
    • Classifying 2D and 3D shapes and finding the perimeter, area, and volume
    • Bar graphs (plotting and analyzing), dot plots, and frequency tables
    • Coordinate planes
    • Word problems
  • Reading – Develop fluency with
    • Making inferences, points of view, and story elements from details and examples in a text
    • Answering challenging questions to demonstrate understanding of a text
    • Using context clues to discern the meaning of unfamiliar words
    • Solidifying understanding of figurative language and differentiate from literal language
    • Developing annotating and note-taking skills to foster active reading
  • Writing – Develop mastery in
    • Producing clear and coherent writing that is appropriate for particular tasks, purposes, and audiences
    • Using transition words and phrases
    • Summarizing and paraphrasing information
    • Using appropriate writing structure for persuasive, informative, and narrative pieces
    • Developing a thesis statement

FAQs

Our amazing tutors have all scored in the top 5% on their SAT/ACT, are charismatic, and have been extensively trained to help students of all grades, motivation levels, and educational goals. Our tutors are a mix of current undergrads or recent graduates from Rice and comparable universities, and they all have experience with helping elementary-aged students. Our goal is to have your student work with the same tutor throughout the program so that they can fully understand your student’s needs and progress.

Your student meets privately with one of our ELP tutors, so we are able to cater to their specific weaknesses and strengths in math, reading, and writing while developing independent learning and critical thinking skills. We move at your student’s pace and do not rigidly restrict how they progress through our curriculum and materials. Other services meet in a group format with inconsistent instructors, focus too heavily on rote memorization, and force students to follow a specific path through their program.

Our tutors use guided questions to help your student find correct answers on their own, and the question-and-answer model in our curriculum helps them grow as learners and builds their confidence. Our students are also encouraged to familiarize themselves with multiple avenues of finding solutions, which allows us to accommodate students of all personalities, levels, and preferences.

We have carefully created our curriculum from national and state standards, such as Texas and New York, to ensure that the concepts we teach match what they are learning or will learn in school and in a challenging way. We use manipulatives for younger grade levels to provide a hands-on experience with math concepts, and we have curated and crafted worksheets, passages, and writing prompts for their sessions and homework. Grade 5 lessons, materials, and tests are all housed in Piqosity, which currently includes education and test prep content for grades 5 through 11.

All kinds! We have structured our program to help a wide variety of interests and goals, including:

  • students who want to work ahead and challenge their skills, such as a first semester 2nd grader working through second semester content or jumping into 3rd grade content
  • students who want to reinforce or dig deeper into what they’re learning in school
  • students with foundation issues who need to remediate missed or previously learned content

Yes, the content and practice they work through will benefit these standardized tests, but we do not work through specific practice for these exams as part of the curriculum. However, we do work to improve your student’s test-taking skills, including time management and engagement with word problems and reading passages, since they will have to tackle these exams and others (such as the ISEE, SAT, ACT) throughout their academic career.

Yes, this program can be held in your home. However, there will be a one-time materials fee for in-home ELP students, and the small cost depends on grade level.

ELP starts at just $80/hour when meeting at our Rice Village office or $95/hour when meeting in-home. Exact hourly rates depend on the tutor and scheduling frequency.

Invoices are generated at the end of each month and can be paid online or in-person.

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