Math Tutoring for Students With Learning Differences
Students with ADHD, dyscalculia, dyslexia, dysgraphia or autism can learn math, often much further than anyone told them. What works is the same three things every time: give them a purpose, rebuild the foundations that were skipped, and give them time instead of lower expectations. Our tutors do this one-on-one, online.
“A diagnosis tells you that something’s missing, but it doesn’t tell you that they can’t succeed.” — Sean Alexander, founder
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The Alexander Difference
Passion + Purpose = Empowered
When math serves your student’s passion, it has purpose. When it has purpose, something remarkable happens — they become empowered to use education to achieve their dreams.
Personalized Matching = Student Passion
We start by learning what lights your student up — music, sports, art, science, anything. Then we match them with a tutor who shares that passion and shows them how math is the hidden engine behind the things they already love. When math serves something they care about, it stops being a chore.
“His high school teachers were great, but were not able to provide the depth and level of support that was needed… His grade went from a C- to an A- within the year he was tutoring… His confidence in math has accelerated to a point where he is planning to take a dual enrollment college calculus course next year as a senior in high school.”
— Krystal M., Parent · Read on Google ↗
Deep Understanding = Purpose
Most students survive math by memorizing formulas — until one curveball on the test sinks them. We teach the why behind every equation, deriving formulas and connecting them to the real world. When your student truly understands the math, they can solve anything a teacher throws at them.
“Tyler at Alexander Math and Physics tutoring helped my son to test into Algebra 2 honors! His math grade in school went up to an A. Then when we told him he could stop tutoring with Tyler he didn’t want to stop tutoring because he enjoyed what he was learning.”
— Alexandra N., Parent · Read on Google ↗
Confidence First = Empowers Students
There’s no such thing as being ‘bad at math’ — only bad math experiences. A harsh teacher, embarrassment in class, one bad test — and suddenly your student decides they can’t do it. We rewrite that story. With a supportive tutor who believes in them, ‘I can’t’ becomes ‘I’ve got this.’
“Being a straight A student, it was difficult to accept her lower grades and it affected her confidence… within two sessions, my daughter felt more confident in Algebra, her test scores improved… My daughter had not only improved her grades but also developed a genuine interest in math.”
— Diana G., Parent · Read on Google ↗
Everything changed for these families.
Finding the right teachers/tutors for my son is not always easy, as he has dyslexia, dysgraphia and ADHD. A lot of educators just don't get it. To that end, I typically, use tutors who work exclusively with kids with learning differences. But I decided to take a gamble on Sean and it paid off. My son was failing Algebra before we started tutoring. We are now going into finals with a chance for an A in the class.
Sean tutored my son who is currently in grade 10. I asked him to write this review since he has first-hand connection with Sean and can better describe his experience with him.Here it is: Sean is the coolest Math tutor on the planet. I'm more of the artist type, so Math is not my strongest suite, but when it came down to the 2nd half of our first trimester at school last year, I knew my grades were in trouble. My parents did some research to get me some help and found Sean's website. On his website, it said he also specializes in kids with Learning Disabilities. PERFECT! I happen to have ADD and get distracted quite easily. From the time I first met Sean, I knew we would click. He has a very easy-going demeanor in him that makes everything he teaches become effortless. He has this way of explaining things and all of a sudden, it becomes crystal clear when he's done. I breezed through my Math classes for the entire year last year all with the help of Sean. I hear he's also a whiz at Science so I might sign up with him again when I start my Science classes. Sean is the man!
I was referred to Sean by my daughter's former Math teacher when she was having trouble transitioning from Integrated Math into Pre-Cal. She went from being an A math student her whole life to getting the first F she had ever received in any class. After working with Sean for a short time she made significant progress. My daughter has a learning difference, and Sean was able to work with her on strategies. In addition to helping her with the basics, he helped her re-gain her confidence. He was great about keeping me in the loop and addressing any concerns, and is very responsive. My daughter also enjoyed his teaching style and found him much more informative and helpful than her Pre-Cal teacher and the tutors provided by her school. He really helped us tackle and move past a horrible experience.
Sean is a great instructor. He works well with all types of students. My child with some learning difficulties did well under his tutoring. I sat in on several sessions and was really impressed with his style of teaching. He has a lot of patience.My 2nd child used Sean's summer program to gain some confidence in math! I highly recommend Sean.
My 8th grader was so demoralized about math before working with Rebecca. In addition to identifying and targeting her areas of struggle with the school material, Rebecca also worked hard to dismantle my daughter's math anxiety and shame. She built a ton of trust and managed to really connect with a teen who until then had been doing her best to hide her deficits, racing through material too fast, pretending not to care, or shrugging it off as "I guess I just suck at math." Together they worked to fill the gaps left after struggling through the pandemic and remote classes, and get my daughter excited about the subject again. She brought her grade from a C to an A, but more importantly, she's not embarrassed to ask for help anymore. Rebecca is a game-changer. We've also really utilized the skills videos and progress reports provided in addition to tutoring.
We are incredibly grateful for the support, patience, and encouragement provided this semester. What started as a stressful and discouraging experience has completely turned around, not just academically, but emotionally as well. Beyond helping strengthen understanding and confidence in Geometry, the consistent positivity, calm approach, and ability to connect have made such a meaningful impact. Seeing renewed confidence, reduced anxiety around math, and even excitement after assessments has been wonderful to witness as a parent. Krishaan, thank you for not only being an excellent tutor, but also for being someone who truly knows how to motivate and support students through challenges. Your work genuinely makes a difference.
Krishann has been absolutely amazing! She explains math in a way that helps our child not only complete the work, but truly understand it. Krishann brings such a positive attitude to every session, and our child feels comfortable asking questions and making mistakes without feeling discouraged. We are so grateful for the confidence and understanding she is helping our child build!
I actually had a few conversation with Sean before I enrolled my son into their programs. Sean was very patient and understood my concern. He assigned my son with Jonathan to do a one on one Geometry session in summer. My son usually gets bored easily and it's hard to capture his full attention. Jonathan did a fantastic job to attract his attention and able to challenge him plus boosting his confidence. My son was very happy with Jonathan. Our goal is to help him to get a solid foundation in summer so that he can master his honor class in fall plus the upcoming pre-cal class. The amount of homework was just right so that he spends reasonable amount of time in playing and working in summer. I strongly recommend Sean and Jonathan for Maths advancement.
My daughter was feeling wholly defeated and distressed by her Honors Trig & AP Bio classes. To the point she was considering dropping her STEM-focused hopes for college. She started working with Rebecca and that changed everything. Rebecca identified challenges, shored up her foundational skills, and taught her methods and practices that she could build on. My daughter’s confidence and competency made a dramatic about-face, and her outcomes on both tests and transcript reflect that shift. She feels confident about the upcoming challenge of Physics and Statistics next year, knowing Rebecca, and her colleagues at Alexander Tutoring, are available to support her.
Alexander Math & Physics Tutoring already came highly recommended to us by our son's teacher but I could not have imagined the impact Tyler had on our son. A junior in High School he was struggling with Physics adding a lot of anxiety and stress to his school days. Our son strives in a 1-1 environment and Sean took time to talk to us about our needs and matched our son with Tyler. Tyler has helped him tremendously, not only understanding and mastering the material but discovering his love for Physics and Math in the process. After the first session with Tyler he came home and could not stop talking about Physics--he could not wait for the next session. He felt that Tyler totally got how he his brain works and was amazed how things all of a sudden fell into place. Tyler will accompany our son through senior year, without a question. Last week our son came home from a Physics class literally jumping up and down. He had been able to explain a process in class as one of the only ones because Tyler had explained it to him in an interesting conversation they had the day before. Moments like these are precious in building the confidence needed to succeed. Tyler is not only our son's tutor but also his mentor. Sean and Tyler have been very accommodating to our schedule--even setting up skype sessions while we were traveling in Germany. Both were in contact with our son's teacher to make sure they understood what was expected in the class. We can very highly recommend Tyler and Sean and his team.
Learning Differences Tutoring at a Glance
- Our approach
- Purpose first, then the foundations that were skipped, then time instead of lower expectations. A diagnosis describes how a student learns; it is not a ceiling on what they can learn.
- Who teaches
- Tutors with degrees in math, physics or engineering, not college students, who adjust to how your student thinks. Our founder taught at a school for neurodivergent students. Meet the team.
- Learning differences
- ADHD, dyscalculia, dyslexia, dysgraphia, autism and math anxiety, with or without a formal diagnosis, 504 plan or IEP.
- Format
- One-on-one and online, on a shared digital whiteboard, with the same tutor every week. Every step goes on paper, and problems are broken into parts.
- What it costs
- $895/month on Dedicated Tutor: a weekly one-on-one session, nightly office hours, monthly progress reports and direct tutor access. See all plans.
- The first lesson
- Risk-free, with a skills assessment that finds the missing foundations and a 30-day plan that is yours to keep. Plans are backed by our Full Semester Guarantee.
Where our approach came from
Before he founded Alexander Tutoring, Sean Alexander taught high school algebra and geometry at Stanbridge Academy in San Mateo, a K–12 school for neurodivergent students. Many of his students had ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dysgraphia or dyscalculia. That year shaped how every Alexander Tutoring tutor works today.
“None of these diagnoses is a reason a student can’t learn something. I’ve seen diagnoses used as an excuse not to do the work, and the excuse was never true.” — Sean Alexander
One of his students was autistic and had dysgraphia. Everything he wrote, math included, was an illegible scrawl, and everyone around him had accepted that. Sean told him he had all day to write three words, as neatly as he possibly could. It took time, and he did it. Sean saw the same thing years later with a student he tutored privately.
“The accommodation is time. Go slow. But they can always do it.” — Sean Alexander
What actually helps a student with a learning difference learn math?
Three things, in this order.
1. Give them a purpose
Attention follows interest, and that is truest of students with ADHD.
“What no one tells you about ADHD is that students hyperfocus on what they care about. Give them a purpose and the focus shows up.” — Sean Alexander
In practice, the first minutes of a lesson often aren’t math. Jonathan Lupercio starts some sessions by just talking, because “if we jump into it, we’re not gonna get anything done.” Krishann McConico opens every lesson the same way: “What’s the vibe?”
2. Rebuild the foundations
Most students who arrive with a label are missing something small and old: a sign rule, a times table, how fractions simplify.
“Dyscalculia is a real diagnosis, but in my experience it’s almost always given to a student who is missing foundations. They were afraid to say they didn’t know their times tables or couldn’t add negatives, and it carried all the way to algebra. Then the label arrives and they’re excused from learning those foundations.” — Sean Alexander
3. Give them time, not a lower bar
Slow down, break the problem into pieces, and write every step on paper. Albert Meng puts it this way: “I can’t learn this new concept while juggling three balls at the same time,” so the balls go on paper.
Which learning differences do we work with?
ADHD
What gets in the way: recall under pressure, long multi-step problems and frustration that builds.
What helps: a reason to care about the work, a short repeatable process for each kind of problem, and every step on paper. Read more about math tutoring for ADHD.
Dyscalculia
What gets in the way: number facts, sign rules, fractions and place value that were never fully learned.
What helps: finding the missing foundation and rebuilding it, with a number line, a labeled place value chart and the habit of checking an answer backwards. How we teach math to students with dyscalculia, or download our free Dyscalculia Survival Guide (PDF).
Dyslexia
What gets in the way: reading the problem, math symbols and word problems.
What helps: reading a word problem like a story first, with the numbers covered, then uncovering and labeling each number.
Dysgraphia
What gets in the way: messy written work that hides correct thinking, and the rush to get writing over with.
What helps: time. Slow down and write it neatly, one line at a time. Students can do it.
Autism (ASD)
What gets in the way: working out what a question is actually asking, then working every detail so hard there is no time left.
What helps: practice spotting the important parts of a problem, first with a guide sheet, then from memory.
Math anxiety
What gets in the way: freezing on tests, even when the student knows the material.
What helps: proof. Krishann McConico reminds students of what they just did on their own: “You proved to me 3 times that you could do this without me.” Read more about math anxiety.
What does this look like with real students?
Five tutors, five students. Names and identifying details are left out.
The unit circle in a week
One of Caleb Nastasi’s students, who has ADHD, had the unit circle provided on every test in 10th and 11th grade, so she never learned it. “She was convinced that the unit circle was an impenetrable, abstract black hole that she was never gonna figure out.” Her calculus teacher this year doesn’t allow it. She learned it in about a week, and six to eight weeks later she hadn’t missed one. The support had been covering a skill she could learn.
“Just because you’re bad at something right now doesn’t mean you’re going to be bad at it forever.” — Caleb Nastasi
From behind to bored
A student of Jonathan Lupercio’s with ADHD started around sophomore year, behind and saying each new math class erased the last one. They built a simple two-to-three-step process for each kind of problem, so recall could kick in instead of freezing. About a year and a half in, the student spent a month and a half ahead of the class, stress-free.
“I just don’t want them to be like, ‘this is a permanent part of you,’ or ‘this will never allow you to be good at math,’ because that’s a lie.” — Jonathan Lupercio
−4 + 2
Krishann McConico also teaches math in a school classroom. One of her students there kept answering −4 + 2 as −6. Krishann saw the student was mixing up the sign rules for adding with the rules for multiplying. Teaching adding and subtracting as distance on a number line fixed it, and multiplying and dividing got easier too.
“You’re not bad at math. It’s the technique you’ve been taught that you don’t understand.” — Krishann McConico
“Just these important parts”
A student of Jake Gerhardt’s with autism and ADHD struggled to tell what a problem was asking, then worked every detail so hard he ran out of time. Practicing quadratics with a guide sheet, then from memory, he realized he didn’t have to spot everything, just the important parts, and began doing many on his own.
“A diagnosis tells you what’s happening, but not how to fix it.” — Jake Gerhardt
Cover the numbers
Many students read a word problem and nothing sinks in. Albert Meng has them cover the numbers, read it like a story and say what it’s about, then uncover the numbers and label them. He took the idea from watching his own daughter go from learning to read to reading to learn.
Ready to see how this works for your student? Book a risk-free first lesson, or explore our math tutoring.
Learning Differences FAQ
Can a student with a learning difference get good at math?
Yes. In our experience the ceiling is almost never the diagnosis. It's usually missing foundations, no reason to care, or being rushed. Fix those, one-on-one, and students go further than anyone expected.
Is dyscalculia real?
Yes. It's a recognized diagnosis, called a specific learning disorder in mathematics, and by definition the difficulty can't be explained by things like poor teaching (Queen's University Belfast). In our experience, most students who come to us with the label are missing foundations that can be taught.
Do your tutors diagnose learning differences?
No. We're math and physics tutors, not clinicians. If you suspect a learning difference, talk to your child's school or pediatrician about an evaluation. We teach the student in front of us, diagnosis or not.
Should my child keep their school accommodations?
Use them. A 504 plan or IEP is a legal requirement for the school, not an option. In lessons we also build the skill underneath, so your student needs the support less over time. Krishann McConico describes it as pulling the support away slowly once she knows a student can do without it.
How long before my child believes they can do math?
It varies. Jake Gerhardt sees the turn in about four to five weeks, and Krishann McConico in about a month. When the arithmetic gaps are deep, Caleb Nastasi has seen it take two to three months.
What should I ask a tutor before hiring them?
Jake Gerhardt's question is the one to start with: “What is your experience and approach for students like my kid who had this diagnosis?” Krishann McConico adds: ask what resources they'll give you so you can help at home.
How much does tutoring cost?
Dedicated Tutor is $895/month: a weekly one-on-one session, nightly office hours, monthly progress reports and direct tutor access. The first lesson is risk-free. See all plans.
Related reading:
- Turning Learning Disability into Learning Genius
- What Tutoring Looks Like for Students With Learning Disabilities
- How to Study Math With ADHD
- 5 Best Concentration Techniques for ADHD Students
- Testing Accommodations for Students With Neurodivergence
- A Guide to Supporting STEM Education for Students With Disabilities
- How to Overcome 5 Unique Challenges Faced by Students With Disabilities
- 8 Expert Math Strategies for Struggling Students
- 8 Ways to Recognize a Child Struggling in School
- How Different Learning Styles Affect Tutoring
- Math Anxiety Is Real. Here’s a Proven Way to Prevent It
- How Confidence Relates to Mathematics
- Our four-year MAP growth study
Further reading: Stanbridge Academy · CDC ADHD data · Specific learning disorder in mathematics (Queen’s University Belfast)
Most tutoring gets a student through Friday’s test. That’s not what we’re for.
Your student learns where every formula comes from, so an unfamiliar free-response question stops being a threat. They stop asking whether something will be on the exam and start asking why it works.
If it doesn’t work, you don’t pay. Period.
We’re so confident in our method that we guarantee your results for the entire semester. If you’re not satisfied at the end of the term, we’ll refund every penny. No fine print. No partial credits. A full refund.
No other tutoring company in the country offers this — because no other tutoring company gets results like ours.
- No credit card required
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