Starting Point

Find out where your child actually is

Not the grade on the form. The place they are genuinely working at. Math is free and needs no card, there is nothing to print, and you do not have to mark anything.

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No card. One sitting. You create the account and stay in control of it.

Why the printable test never told you much

Search for a placement test and you get PDFs. They are free, and they are fixed: the same forty questions for every child, marked by you at the kitchen table, producing a recommendation that a particular publisher’s Level 4 is about right.

That last part is the problem. A publisher’s placement test exists to sort your child into that publisher’s books. It is a sales instrument doing double duty, and it is why two of them can put the same child two years apart.

A fixed test also cannot follow a child. If question three is too hard, the remaining thirty-seven are all too hard, and what you learn is that they struggled — not where they actually stand.

What happens instead

It starts where you say they are — their actual grade — and asks one question about what they are working on right now. From there it moves. A clean answer and it jumps ahead rather than creeping; a miss and it steps back and teaches the thing that was missed.

Because it adapts, a child who is two years ahead is not marched through easy arithmetic to prove it, and a child who is behind is not drowned in questions they cannot touch. Both of those are the normal failure of a fixed test.

At the end you get a plain description of where they are and what the first sessions would work on. No score is shown to the child.

Nine subjects, not just the two

Most tutoring is maths or reading. Those matter most, and they are not the whole of what a child is behind in.

Math is the free one. The other eight are part of a paid plan, so you can see what a Starting Point is actually like before you pay for anything.

MathReadingWriting & GrammarSpelling & VocabularyScienceHistory & Social StudiesGeographyLogic & Critical ThinkingMechanical & Spatial Reasoning

Five of those — reading, grammar, mathematics, social studies and science — are the ones an Arizona ESA contract requires a family to spend on.

What it is not

It is not a diagnosis. It does not detect dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD or anything else clinical, and it should not be used to rule any of those in or out. If you have that kind of worry, the person to see is a professional who can actually assess for it.

It is not a standardised test, and it produces nothing you could submit as one.

And it is a conversation on one day, so it can misread a child who is tired or distracted. What saves it is that nothing depends on the first read — the tutor keeps adjusting its picture every session afterwards.

Questions about the Starting Point

Is it really free?

The Math Starting Point is free and does not need a card. We would rather you saw a real session before deciding whether any of this is worth paying for. The other eight subjects open up on a paid plan — so you can see exactly what one of these is like, on the subject most families ask about first, before you decide anything.

How is this different from a printable placement test?

A printable test is fixed — every child gets the same questions, you mark it yourself, and the result sorts them into the publisher’s own curriculum. This adapts while it runs: a confident answer moves it up, a miss moves it down and it teaches rather than marking you wrong. Nothing to print, nothing for you to grade.

Will it make my child feel bad if they are behind?

It is built not to. There is no score, no grade and no pass mark shown to the child — it is a conversation that gets harder or easier depending on how it is going. If a child misses something, the tutor teaches it rather than marking it wrong and moving on.

What if my child is ahead rather than behind?

It handles that, and it is the case most tests handle badly. The placement opens at the grade you give it and asks what they are working on now, then moves in jumps rather than one rung at a time — so a capable student is not walked through arithmetic to prove they can do algebra.

How accurate is it?

Treat it as a well-informed starting point rather than a diagnosis. It is a conversation with a child on one day, and it can misread one. What makes it useful is that it is not final — the tutor keeps revising its picture every session, so a wrong first read gets corrected by the work rather than sitting in a file.

Do you place adults?

Not yet. The product is built for children and the placement is wired for a parent-created child account. An adult can use the tutor, but the placement is not for them today.

Stop guessing what they need

Create your child’s account, pick the subject you are worried about, and watch one session. That is the whole decision.

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