About Me

How did we get here?

This is a new business venture for me. I officially launched Flagstaff Math Tutoring on Aug. 30th 2021. After 3 years of teaching at a local Flagstaff high school, I realized I wasn't reaching those students who needed the most help. There just simply wasn't enough time in the class period to give everyone the amount of help they needed with the amount of content I was required to cover during the year. I realized I really want to spend my time helping these students who are struggling. If those students had just a little extra help maybe they wouldn't be so overwhelmed. Maybe they wouldn't think they were bad at math. Maybe they would actually like math for once because they understand it. So I thought about how I could make this happen. I reflected on my background of business, tutoring, and what parts of teaching I enjoyed most and decided that starting Flagstaff Math Tutoring was really my dream job.

I want to bring high quality help to students and their parents so that math isn't such an area of pain, anxiety, confusion, frustration, or shame. I watched too many students just give up because they didn't have access to help and they declared "I'm bad at math." I hope that I can help you or your student feel more confident in their math ability and start enjoying their math class.

During my time with each student it is my goal to do the following:

1. Strengthen logical reasoning: Too often math is taught in a way that requires students to memorize steps or procedures without understanding how everything is connected or why we are doing each step. I want to focus on students being able to understand a problem, plan a way to solve it, logically reason through it, and be able to explain it to someone else.

2. Get Organized: There are a lot of organization skills that students are missing that are causing math to be more difficult. We talk about the importance of keeping work neat and easy to follow, keeping lines straight, boxing answers, and showing all of your work in a way that someone else can follow it.

3. Identify foundational weaknesses: If your student has weaknesses or gaps in their math knowledge their assignments are going to take a long time and become frustrating. For example, if a student is learning to add fractions with unlike denominators but doesn't have their multiplication facts memorized, the task is going to be much harder for them. I would identify this and recommend flash card practice.

4. Vocabulary: Math has its' own set of vocabulary words. If someone doesn't know them, then it becomes hard to understand what they are suppose to do. I work with each student to identify vocabulary words and make a resource so they can look them up later.

5. Students are Explaining: I aim to have students be able to explain each problem as much as possible. The more students can teach what they are doing by using their vocabulary words and models we have talked about the more they will really understand the concept.

My education as a teacher is rooted in Elementary Education. My Master's degree in Math Education strengthened my depth of content knowledge by requiring many advanced math courses. The bulk of my teaching experience is with a large population of students who have special education services or pronounced difficulties in math. I share these things with you so that you can better understand my skill set and what I am bringing to each tutoring session.

If you would like to talk more or have any questions, feel free to contact me via phone, text, or email.

Kayla Richards
E-mail: FlagstaffMathTutoring@gmail.com
Phone Number: 231-670-4352
Follow me on Facebook: FACEBOOK LINK