What happens when my student has the skill?

Primer records the skill as mastered once three consistent exit tickets say so. Then drop it and add the next one, keep going, or cancel. There is no contract and nothing to return.

Primer as a tutor

Tutoring for one skill, not a whole new school.

Q: My student is in school. Will Primer match what they are doing in class?

Primer's skills are aligned to the standards most schools use (Common Core Math and ELA, NGSS, and C3), so the ladder covers the same ground in roughly the same order, and each lesson shows its typical grade level. If class is on a specific topic this month, use Start here now on that rung or type a note in the Quick Update box.

Your student is doing fine in most subjects. Fractions are not fine. Switch on just that skill, and Primer builds a ladder of lessons through it, starts where they are stuck, and teaches it one lesson at a time, around the things they already love.

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Runs alongside school One skill or a whole subject Cancel anytime

A Fractions path with one skill switched on under Mathematics. Lesson one, Fractions as Numbers, is struck through as mastered. Lesson two, Equivalent Fractions, is marked current with an amber circle. Four more lessons follow, each with a grade number on the right: 4, 4, 5, 5.

One skill switched on. Lesson one mastered, lesson two in progress, and the typical grade level on every rung.

Who this is for

The one thing, whatever the one thing is.

Primer was built to reimagine education around one student at a time. A tutor works on one problem. So can Primer.

Catching up on one skill

Fine in class, stuck on one thing. Long division. Reading fluency. Fractions with unlike denominators. Switch on that skill and nothing else, and Primer finds the rung they are actually missing, which is often a grade or two below where the trouble shows up.

"She gets everything except fractions."

Getting ahead on purpose

Ready for more than the class is doing. A fifth grader who wants pre-algebra now, not in two years. The grade band filter picks the list you browse, not the student, so you can add a middle school skill to an elementary student who is ready for it.

"He is bored, and bored is becoming a problem."

Chasing a question

Something school will never get to. How circuits work. Becoming a horse vet. Type one sentence in your student's words and Primer turns it into a sequenced course that runs like any other skill, with the same lessons, the same progress, and the same exit tickets.

"She asked about it at dinner and I had no answer."

The thing they love

Fractions, taught in the dugout.

The reason tutoring works is that someone sits down and teaches the subject through the student in front of them. Primer starts the same way. Tell it one thing your student loves, and the lesson is written inside that world. Here is the same equivalent fractions lesson, twice.

Theo, baseball, fractions

The idea shows up where he already lives.

Theo loves baseball, so his equivalent fractions lesson opens in a dugout. Look at what the boy is holding: a chocolate bar broken into two pieces next to one broken into smaller pieces. The picture is not decoration. It makes the lesson's idea visible inside Theo's world, so he can often guess what the lesson is about before he reads a word.

Then the math itself. The same half, split into four smaller equal parts, becomes four eighths, and the bars show it. The dugout got him in the door. The bars do the teaching.

Watch the whole lesson, about 90 seconds, on the home page, or read how it is built in Cinematic Lessons.

The title page of Theo's lesson, Build Fractions with Equal Parts. A boy in a baseball uniform sits in a dugout comparing a chocolate bar broken into two pieces with one broken into smaller pieces. Beside it: the objective, You will learn how equal parts can be split into smaller equal parts to make equivalent fractions, a 30 minute estimate, and a Begin button.

A slide from the same lesson. Two fraction bars, one half shaded amber above four eighths shaded blue, with the equation one half equals one times four over two times four equals four eighths, and the caption: if you split each half into four smaller equal parts, you get eight equal parts total, and four of them are shaded. — Same lesson, a few slides later. The dugout fades back and the fraction bars carry the idea.

Maya, horses, fractions

Same lesson. Different barn.

Maya wants to be a horse veterinarian, and she has a whole path on that. But the interest does not stay in its own lane. Her equivalent fractions lesson opens in a stable, with a vet showing her two feed trays: one split into halves, one into quarters, the same amount of grain in each. That is the whole idea of the lesson, sitting on a table in her world.

A few slides in, the barn fades back and the fraction bars take over, the same way they do for Theo. The examples change. The objective does not. Only the world it happens in is hers.

One interest, every subject Rotates lesson to lesson Same objective, same exit ticket

The title page of Maya's lesson, Equivalent Fractions: Same Amount, Different Parts. A veterinarian in a white coat points at two feed trays on a table in a stable, one divided into two sections and one into four, while a girl in a teal hoodie and a bay horse look on. Beside it: the objective, You will use fraction pictures to see how two fractions can name the same amount even when the whole is split into different numbers of parts, a 30 minute estimate, and a Begin button.

A slide from the same lesson. The text reads: You are not making more food or a bigger bar. You are only cutting the same whole into more equal pieces. Now compare 2/3 and 3/5. Below, two fraction bars, two thirds shaded amber above three fifths shaded blue, with the stable and horse blurred behind them. — Same lesson, a few slides later. The feed trays become fraction bars, and the horse stays in the background.

It is not a reward for finishing the work. It is the work. And it is the difference between a student who shows up for tutoring and one you have to fetch.

How tutoring works in Primer

Switch on a skill. Read the ladder. Start where they are.

Four screens, about ten minutes of setup, and the first lesson is on the table tonight. The decisions along the way are yours. The lesson writing is not.

Switch on one skill.

Choose a focus area, then check the one skill you want. Every skill states its scope and grade range in a sentence you can read: Math Facts (Fluency), recall addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts with automaticity, K to 5. Nothing else turns on.

Your student's whole curriculum can be one line long, and it can stay that way. Add a second skill in a month, or never.

Six focus areas K through 12 Add or drop any time

The Add Skills panel with Mathematics selected and the Elementary grade band chosen. A checklist of skills follows, each with a one-line description and grade range: Addition and Subtraction, Counting and Cardinality, Math Facts (Fluency), Place Value, Geometry, and Measurement and Data.

The Current Skills row showing two active skills as removable chips: Becoming a Horse Veterinarian, and Fractions at zero percent. — Two skills switched on, a custom topic and Fractions. Either one comes off with a click.

Read the ladder, and start where they are stuck.

Primer breaks the skill into sequenced lessons, each resting on the one before. The small number on the right of every row is the typical grade level. Read down the Fractions column and it goes 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5. One skill, three years of school.

That is where tutoring usually goes wrong. A student who is lost in fifth grade fractions is often missing a third grade rung, and the ladder shows you which one. Open any lesson and the decisions are yours: Mark mastered for what they already have, Start here now for the rung they are on, Skip for what does not belong.

The full walkthrough of skills, paths, and the five buttons is in You Are the Principal Now.

The Fractions path, six lessons deep, with lesson one struck through, lesson two marked current, and grade numbers 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5 down the right.

The lesson Add and Subtract Fractions expanded to show its objective and five buttons: Start here now, Start here next, Mark mastered, Moving on, and Skip.

Lessons written for this student.

Every lesson runs the same five steps: Lesson, Unplugged, Puzzle, Practice, Exit Ticket. About thirty minutes, with read-aloud audio, key vocabulary highlighted, and a hand-picked video to watch together.

The examples are built around what your student loves, the way Theo's fractions live in the dugout above. A kid who wants nothing to do with reading gets a passage about otters and a cat named Waffles. And a Need Help? coach sits on every step for the moment they get stuck.

Their interests in every example Read-aloud audio A coach on every step

The title page of a Word Problems lesson. On the left, an illustration of a child in an astronaut suit and a friendly robot sorting star and lightning-bolt tokens on a spaceship table. On the right, Today's Lesson, the title Word Problems, the subtitle Addition and Subtraction Within 10, the objective, a 30 minute estimate, and a Begin button. — A word problems lesson for a student who loves space and robots. Every lesson opens like this, in their world.

Watch the gap close.

The exit ticket at the end of every lesson is the measuring stick. Each one moves the skill's mastery number, weighted toward recent work, so a rough September does not hide a strong November. One bad day is a dip, not a collapse. One good day is not a badge, either.

Primer does not call a skill mastered until three consistent exit tickets say so. When it does, drop the skill, add the next one, or cancel. There is no contract, and there is nothing to return.

How the numbers are measured, in plain language: Understanding Your Student's Progress.

The Progress Classwork tab showing four stat tiles, one completed lesson out of five, an 83 percent average score, and six questions, above a list of lessons and a worksheet with their status and score.

When it is bigger than one skill

A path, when one rung will not cover it.

Sometimes the gap is not a lesson. It is a subject. Add a whole skill ladder, or several, and Primer sequences the lot. The Path view lines every ladder up side by side with the grade level on each rung, so you can see exactly where your student stands in each one.

Anna's Path tab filtered to Mathematics, with three skill ladders side by side: Ratios and Proportions at zero of six mastered, Pre-Algebra at zero of nine, and Word Problems at zero of fifteen with rungs nine through eleven struck through and rung twelve, Ratio and rate reasoning, marked current. Each rung shows a grade number on the right. — Three math ladders for one student. In Word Problems, rungs 9 through 11 are done and rung 12 of 15 is current. Every rung carries its typical grade level.

Catch up

A summer of math, in order

Add the three or four skills that slipped, walk each ladder and mark what they already have as mastered, and set the batch to three lessons a week. Nothing expires, a missed week does not reset anything, and a written summary of the week lands on your side of the screen.

Building a weekly routine

Get ahead

The next subject, a year early

The Elementary, Middle and High filters narrow the list you browse. They are not a declaration about your student. Add Pre-Algebra to a fifth grader who is ready, and the path opens at the rung a seventh grader would start on, with the grade number right there so you can see it.

How a path is built

Chase a question

A course from one sentence

Type what they want to learn, in their words. Theo got 15 units on how circuits work. Maya got 18 on becoming a horse veterinarian. Neither is a unit anywhere in the country, and both run like any other skill.

An animation running the same three steps for two students. For Theo, the sentence Theo would like to learn about circuits and how they work becomes a path called Circuits and How They Work, opening on a lesson about electricity in daily life. For Maya, the sentence Maya would like to learn about becoming a horse vet produces a different path, Becoming a Horse Veterinarian, opening on What Vets Do.

You Decide What They Study

What every session comes with

The parts of a good tutor, built into every lesson.

A tutor is not just someone who explains. They notice when a student is stuck, adjust, and come back to the thing that did not land. Each of those has a place in the lesson.

A coach on call

A Need Help? button sits in the corner of every step. Tap a word they do not know, tap a sentence that is confusing, or type a question. You can read every exchange afterward, so you know what they asked and what they were told.

The bottom of a Flower Parts and Jobs lesson screen, with the read-aloud play button and the Need Help? button in the corner

Built for the kid who fights the page

Dyslexia-friendly type, four text sizes, tinted overlays, read-aloud on every page, and sound-out words on the exact skill a lesson teaches. All of it lives inside the lesson, so it never looks like a tool for kids who need help.

A lesson screen on the Thirteen Colonies with large text and the key terms New England, Middle Colonies, and Southern Colonies highlighted in amber

The exit ticket decides tomorrow

Every lesson closes with a recap of what they learned, then the exit ticket checks it. A missed question shows the student what to try next time, and the next lesson folds the miss back in until it sticks. Primer keeps a list of misconceptions that recur, and how it corrected each one.

The summary screen at the end of a Word Problems lesson, headed You Learned, with five bullets on join and take away and a Start Unplugged button

A worksheet with their name on it

Every lesson comes with a printable worksheet, greeting by name, answer key on the last page. Need three more on multiplication because it is not quite sticking? Email your student's Primer teacher and they arrive as PDFs.

$An Equivalent Fractions worksheet for Maya, with a dog and a cat beside a sliced pie and a page of fraction problems$

Off the screen, on purpose

Every lesson has an Unplugged step: about five minutes with paper and pencil, measuring a room, drawing a map, building with whatever is around. The screen earns its place. It does not replace doing.

A by-hand off-screen activity card from a lesson

Tell it what class is doing

Skills line up with the standards most schools teach from: Common Core Math and ELA, NGSS, and C3. If class is on a specific topic this month, type it into the Quick Update box in plain language and Primer maps it into the plan.

The Curriculum tab with a Standards Alignment card listing CCSS Math, CCSS ELA, NGSS and C3, and a Quick Update box that reads Tell Primer what to focus on in plain language

Fits around school

Twenty minutes after dinner. Or Saturday morning.

A tutor comes on Tuesdays at four. Primer is there whenever the twenty minutes turn up, on the web in any browser or in the iOS app on iPad, and it picks up exactly where the last session ended. The pace is a setting, not a schedule you have to keep.

Batches of one, three, or five lessons. One at a time, a few evenings a week, is the rhythm most tutoring families keep. Nothing sits unfinished.
Self-paced, parent-led, or hybrid. Let them run it, teach it yourself with a printable plan, or have them read alone and review the practice together. Change your mind any time.
Nothing expires. A missed week does not reset anything. Lessons stay queued where they were, and the useful next step is one short lesson, not a catch-up marathon.
A written summary every week. This Week's Story, in plain English, with highlights, next steps, and what Primer is noticing about where they get stuck.

Web app on any modern browser Native iOS app for iPad via the App Store

Download on the App Store

A high school lesson screen explaining that on the unit circle the x-coordinate is cosine and the y-coordinate is sine, with a diagram of a 45 degree angle and its coordinates — The same lesson player from equal parts to the unit circle, on the web and in the iOS app.

0.66 SD

Intelligent tutoring raised scores by about two thirds of a standard deviation, a typical student from the 50th to the 75th percentile, and beat controls in 46 of 50 studies.

0.5 SD

Mastery learning, moving on only when a student has it, averages half a standard deviation across 108 evaluations, with the strongest effects for the weakest students.

Read the Research

$40 per student, per month

One price, one skill or all of them.

Tutors charge by the hour. Primer is a flat monthly price for every subject and every grade, with 1,000 credits a month, about 100 lessons, which is more than any tutoring schedule uses. Start with 200 risk-free credits, free for 14 days. Cancel anytime, no contracts.

Every subject, K to 12 Worksheets and exit tickets included Weekly parent summary Cancel anytime

Questions

The things parents ask first.

Do I have to set up a whole curriculum?

No. Add one skill and press Generate Lessons. A curriculum of one skill is a complete curriculum in Primer. You can add more later, or never.

My student is in school. Will Primer match what they are doing in class?

Primer's skills are aligned to the standards most schools teach from, Common Core Math and ELA, NGSS, and C3, so the ladder covers the same ground in roughly the same order, and each lesson shows its typical grade level. If class is on a specific topic this month, open that rung and press Start here now, or type a note in the Quick Update box on the Curriculum tab.

How long is a session?

A full lesson runs about twenty to thirty minutes across its five steps: Lesson, Unplugged, Puzzle, Practice, and Exit Ticket. Set the batch size to one lesson and nothing sits unfinished between sessions. It runs on the web in any browser, or in the iOS app on iPad, and picks up where it left off on either.

Can my student do it without me sitting beside them?

Yes. In Self-Paced mode the student reads, practices, and takes the exit ticket on their own, with the Need Help? coach on every step and read-aloud audio if they want it. Parent-Led and Hybrid modes are there if you would rather teach it yourself or review together afterward. More on delivery modes.

Is there a human tutor?

Primer's lessons and teachers are AI. Every student has a named Primer teacher with their own email address, on the student's Profile tab. Write to ask for extra worksheets, a pacing change, or an honest read on how it is going, and you will hear back within a few minutes. Emailing your student's teacher.

What happens when they have it?

Primer records the skill as mastered once three consistent exit tickets say so, and celebrates it. Then drop the skill and add the next one, keep going, or cancel. There is no contract and nothing to return.

Start with the one thing.

Try a single free lesson on the skill that needs work, no account required. Or start a free trial and have the first real lesson on the table tonight.

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