Math tutoring: when the teacher strays from the book
So your child gets home, and starts her homework. Pretty soon she has a question about a problem that she is working on. You both go to the book and it is not in there, no matter how hard you look for it. Then your daughter says, "I think Mr. Teacher said it wasn't in the book, that he is doing something special for this topic." You ask if there was a handout perhaps? No, no handout. Just a bunch of chicken scratch notes, and a vague idea of how to do the problem.

Has this happened to you at home? Well, it happens to our tutors sometimes. Just recently, one of my tutors reported an issue like this with factoring trinomials (an Algebra topic). The student was told to use a certain method which was not in the book, and was not in her notes with enough detail to help her solve the problem. Luckily, our tutor had the resources and knowledge to know what the teacher was getting at, and was able to help the student understand the method.

Your child can be confused for many reasons: the teacher may have gone without a handout or instructional guide, your child may have lost the handout or instructional guide, or your child may have daydreamed during the most important part of the class, where the critical "how to" was copied from the board. Whatever the case, it is nice to have the tutoring support to guide your child through.