Algebra tutoring in Madison, Wisconsin
Kolu is software. Nobody from Kolu will drive to your house in Madison, and we have no office there. If you want a person, this page says how we would look for one. If the question is which skill is missing, we can help with that part.
Public schools in Madison are run by Madison Metropolitan School District. Wisconsin has no separate Algebra I exam. Algebra is tested inside the Forward Exam (grade 8), PreACT Secure (grades 9 and 10) and the ACT with writing (grade 11).
Algebra I assumes middle school went well
Algebra I is where students who got by on memorized procedures run out of procedures. The course assumes negative numbers, fractions and the distributive property are automatic. For a lot of ninth graders they aren't, and the course doesn't stop to check.
Watch what happens with 3(x − 4) = 2x + 5. The algebra in it is one idea, which is to do the same thing to both sides. Most wrong answers come from somewhere else, usually 3 times −4 turning into −7 or +12. A student can practice solving equations for a month and keep losing points to a seventh-grade skill.
The problem on the page
3(x − 4) = 2x + 5
Solving multi-step equations
Algebra I
Distributive property
Grade 6 · rests on the one below
Multiplying and subtracting negative numbers
Grade 7 · usually where it started
Order of operations
Grade 5
What Wisconsin tests, by grade
| Grade | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reading and writing | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | PreACT Secure | PreACT Secure | ACT with writing | Not tested |
| Math | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | PreACT Secure | PreACT Secure | ACT with writing | Not tested |
| Science | Not tested | Forward Exam | Not tested | Not tested | Not tested | Forward Exam | PreACT Secure | PreACT Secure | ACT with writing | Not tested |
- Forward Exam: reading and writing, math, grades 3 through 8
- Forward Exam: science, grades 4 and 8
- PreACT Secure: reading and writing, math, science, grades 9 and 10
- ACT with writing: reading and writing, math, science, grade 11
Testing dates, graduation rules and the one deadline families miss are on a separate page. Madison guide
Kolu finds the missing skill and goes back to it
In Kolu, Algebra I is a map of skills with the middle-school ones still attached. When a student misses an equation, the grader looks at how it was missed. A dropped negative sends the next few activities to integer arithmetic and then back to equations, to see whether the fix held. Students type algebra as algebra, and 2x + 5 and 5 + 2x are the same answer.
Kolu does not call a skill mastered after one right answer. That takes correct work on different kinds of problems on different days, and a skill that fades gets brought back.
Kolu is not test prep for the Forward Exam. It has no bank of released questions. It teaches the skills the test draws on, and it will not do tonight's homework.
When to hire a person instead
A person is worth paying for when a student is failing the class right now and the semester grade is at stake. Someone who can look at the teacher's own tests and decide what to skip will do more in three weeks than a program will.
In Madison, ask the school first. Teachers know who tutors, and a counselor at Madison Metropolitan School District can tell you what the district already offers at no cost. After that, try students at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison College or Edgewood University, who took these courses recently and usually charge less than an agency.
Whoever you hire, ask one question before the first session: how will you find out what my child doesn't know? If the answer is that they will go over the homework, keep looking.
Free for one subject, $15 a month for 5
Kolu is free for one subject at a time, with one full skill check every 30 days and up to 4 sessions a day. Plus is $15 a month, or $120 for a year, and covers 5 subjects at once with unlimited skill checks. A learner under 13 needs a parent or guardian to set up the account.