Discover the passion and desire Luther Tsai, one of our franchisees, has to improve your child’s grades with this Markham Crossing director interview.

Interview was conducted verbally, so transcript reflects natural, conversational English with conscious light editing versus what might appear in a formal, written piece.

Luther: My name is Luther and we started the Academy for Mathematics & English in the beautiful Markham Village community. We’re located right at the corner of Highway 7 and Markham Road. It’s very easy to find and is very conveniently located — just beside the Starbucks and there’s a public library (Markham Village Library) and skating rink just across the road.

For myself and my wife, we both have extensive experience as educational leaders throughout Asia and in Canada. So, I guess you can say we really have passion for, and experience in, education and that’s why we wanted to help kids by offering tutoring services in our local community. For myself, for seven years, I was in-charge of an architectural and environmental studies program which is a problem-based learning program in Hong Kong. And my wife has been in-charge of international school programs in Singapore and in Hong Kong and she had her own education center.

But, coming to Canada, we looked at all the different types of educational offerings for kids and we just found that the Academy’s tutoring service was the best by far because it is Ontario curriculum aligned and it has a very effective multi-sensory learning system. It really just delivers the best results for kids. So, for ourselves basically, we’re really passionate about helping kids through education – and want to make a difference in kids’ lives. So, that’s a little bit about who we are.

Luther: Our tutoring service – I would call it more of a customized educational service for kids of all levels and learning types, whether they be visual learners or learners who can just listen to teachers and pick things up very quickly or even students involved in special learning programs. What we do is basically we help them at all levels with first and foremost the Ontario curriculum as a framework, plus, because our tutors are all university degree-holders in Math, English or Sciences, students basically have our tutors’ collective experience and expertise and guidance available to help them, right at their fingertips. So that kind of coaching, that kind of individualized tutoring support for every type of student, that’s what we really offer here.

Luther: Okay. Well, we live in this community and we love this community. Markham’s a fine mix of all — United Nations basically – and there are a lot of very good schools in this area and families who really have actually moved here to benefit from some of the top educational offerings. But they find that they do need extra support, for example for the gifted programs or IB or just for the very good local schools here.

Luther: It’s quite interesting because although we’re located in Markham east near Cornell and also near the newer neighborhoods in that growing area, we have students from all the local schools, the gifted schools, the district schools like Markham District High School and also the higher intensity schools like St. Robert IB School, St. Patrick’s Catholic School and some of the top schools like Pierre Elliott Trudeau near Angus Glen and Unionville High School. We get kids from all over but what’s really interesting is that we’re actually getting a lot of kids from Stouffville and even Pickering. They’re drawn in because of referrals and things like that.

Luther: Okay. Well, our Markham community is so mixed, I would typify maybe three different types of students who come here, based on their levels.

Some of them are struggling and at 50s or failing. And they’re coming to us because we have an Ontario aligned curriculum and we can quickly recognize where they’re at because we do a free evaluation that’s very detailed, much more detailed than a report card, testing individual areas, either in Math or English, where they are weak. So, we would be able to see what they’re supposed to be learning at their grade level but also establish where they are right now. So, for example, they might be two grade levels below where they ought to be in a certain unit in Math. We can re-teach them those areas and test them so that they are confident.

Some of our families coming in are actually on IEP programs and the majority we’ve been able to take out of those programs. Sometimes we have a few cases where they’re coming where the teachers say, “Unless you pass or your marks aren’t higher, you’re going to be on IEP.” In two months, we’ve been able, in two specific cases, to bring them out of that program and one of them is a top student now. He’s just been here for six months, coming from Niagara Falls and transferred to our region and he was really struggling. But they’re so happy. From that kind of borderline failure case, he’s now getting 70s and 80s. So, he’s so happy. So, we have some kids at that level.

We have kids just at basically an average level and their parents are quite proactive. They want the best for their kids and they want their kids not just to come and get the marks but they want them to enjoy, and have confidence in, their class. So, typically, these kind of kids are coming in with 70s or 80s. We can get them up to the 90s within six months.

And then, of course, we have our high-level kids who are already getting high 80s and 90s. Just the last semester I had about three or four students in that condition and their final mark in their exams, about two students who got 96%, a couple of 95s and one student in Grade 11, getting 97%.

So, what we offer, we have English and Math from kindergarten to Grade 12 and we have Sciences, the Chemistry and Physics 11 and 12 as well. And then we have a new program called Super Readers. So, there are some families who bring their kids who are four year old or senior or junior kindergarten who are really struggling with reading. And we know that reading is the gateway to learning. And they’re coming here for the Super Readers program and we have great testimonials with kids who could not read and in two or three months, they are reading Dr. Seuss on their own at home and they’re just becoming so much more happy at school. And that’s really opening up the doors for their education as they are just starting out.

Luther: We’ve been in business I should say 31 years because the franchise has been helping students across Canada for about that long and we’ve been using its material and accumulated expertise. But, for us, we started our center using this fantastic multi-sensory learning, Ontario curriculum aligned materials for about a little more than a year. We were opened by the Mayor of Markham, Mayor Scarpitti, and also the York Region School Board of trustees who helped us in our grand opening.

It has been a fantastic year and we are happy. Just now after the exams we’re getting a lot of support and praise, testimonials from parents and a lot of referrals. So, we’re actually almost full in many of our time slots.

Luther: I think that definitely would be our Math tutoring programs, representing maybe 70% of our intake and 30% would be for English. Actually, within the 70% Math, I think that’s also inclusive of the high-level Chemistry and Physics program for Grades 11 and 12.

Luther: Yes and because in our particular area, we have a lot of the top schools, IB, gifted programs, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Unionville, the kids are finding the competition quite high to get top marks. There is a concern in these top schools, so a lot of them are coming in the summers actually to take the year in advance. Or, if they’re in a semestered program – which most of them are except for the gifted at Markham District – they’re very conscientious kids, and if they don’t take Math during the summer, they’re worried they are going to forget a lot of it and that will put them behind and not put them in the best situation to get strong 11th or 12th grade math marks, so they come to us in the summer as well.

Luther: We enjoy the relationships and interaction with our students and their parents. This past season has been great. Not only have we been giving awards to recognize their achievement as students but we’ve been so happy that actually a lot of the parents have been giving us chocolates and gifts and things like that at Christmas and even throughout the year. So, it’s a giving community here. So, just the relationship, that really makes a difference for us.

Luther: There is a very big difference. Between Sylvan and Oxford and some of the other ones, the difference that our program offers is our 31 years of experience in Canada. Our curriculum is really aligned to the Ontario curriculum. And, also, it’s been supported with I believe one of the only multi-sensory programs. Every unit in Math, reading or English – and also high-level Science, Physics and Chemistry – can be taught to the students at their own pace, with our unique audio-visual programs.

The other thing is that we have an exam preparation for them that’s included. Most families sign up for six months or a year program because within that time, it’s our experience that they can improve one or two grade levels. So, the exam prep package, especially for the high school students really helps to ensure that they’re getting the preparation they need for the actual results that they can see in their report cards and in their final exams. So, I would say those two, (i) basically our Ontario curriculum alignment and customization and (ii) our multi-sensory program format really separate us from our competitors.

Plus the other thing is that our tutors are also top. They’re all degree-holders in Math, English and Sciences. Most of my English teachers are OISE educated, some with master’s degrees. Most of my Math teachers actually have master’s degrees or PhDs in Math.

Luther: We start off with the free evaluation. So, we know intimately the strengths and weaknesses of each student and we share that as we start out each student with the tutoring team. And then, what we create is a special customized program mapped onto the Ontario curriculum for them. That means that some areas where they’re weak, they will do more of that initially, so we actually pull out those units for them. So that forms the structure.

And some students who are gifted, we will actually pre-teach the year ahead. So, we have that as our basic structure but we teach differently as well, customized to each student’s abilities and speed of progress. We tailor our programs to match their unique rate of progress. .

For students who are behind, we find that we may not be following exactly what they’re doing at school because it can be counter productive at first. If they can’t understand the pre-requisite skills that their teachers teach them this week, we have to go back and make sure that they understand the fundamentals first. And, then, as necessary, we do customize our help so that if they have a test or homework that they’re struggling with, usually we can also help to very quickly clarify some of the points and some of the concepts, so that they can also keep up as well, even though they’re struggling or far behind, overall.

Luther: Okay, yes. We have a monthly student of the month award. So, maybe even just this past month because every month we have students who are excelling and all of our students are special to us. But for the past month, we have one boy, Lucas, he started out with us about a year ago and he was struggling with 60%, C-minuses all around. And his confidence was very low. He’s a great hockey player though. And so, actually in our community, the funny story with Lucas is that not only has he excelled, he’s been averaging 80s and 90s in his last few tests and scored 93% on his last test.

So, in one year we got him not just the marks. What makes the difference is his mom is saying his confidence has grown so much that he’s really taking his education more seriously as well in addition to his top-quality scores and results. And the funny thing is that now, most of his friends are here as well. He’s at St. Patrick’s Catholic. So, we have two of his friends now too. I didn’t know but recently, I found out that they’re also close friends as well. So, they’re here as well now and they’re also pulling up their marks and their confidence. So, that’s one example of someone who has come in low in marks but is now getting high marks and his self esteem has increased dramatically.

Luther: Yes, yes. For us and especially, mostly for the students and their families. It gives them peace of mind and it gives them a better stance and confidence in their studies and in their futures.

Luther: Well, one thing is that we try very hard and we are learning from our students. When I say learning from our students I mean that we want to know their individual needs and we want them to individually succeed. So, everyone is special here. And we have solid material at the Academy – a powerful, proven tutoring methodology – with an Ontario curriculum aligned, multi-sensory system and top tutors to make that difference. But how we apply it is basically customized to the needs of every student and their family. So, if we can get that kind of relationship going, I am certain that we can guarantee results, not just in education but also in life. We want to make a difference in the community as well as in the schools.