1980s: Our Story Begins
- In the early 1980s Steve Demme was a schoolteacher and the pastor of a small congregation in Georgia. Steve has always been passionate about helping people understand difficult concepts and promoting a lifelong love of learning.
- As Steve and his wife Sandi started their family, they heard about the concept of home education and began pursuing it as an option for their children. In the late 1980s the Demme family moved to Massachusetts where Steve continued to teach and began tutoring and training parents and teachers on methods of teaching math.
1990s: Math-U-See is Born
- As a successful teacher who taught in public and private schools as well as higher education, founder Steve Demme was asked to teach math to a homeschool co-op in Massachusetts. Steve combined his knowledge of curriculum with his experience as a teacher and taught the students once a week using a multi-sensory skill-based approach.
- Steve developed worksheets for the students to take home and practice what they had learned with their parents. When approached by parents who asked to purchase the materials for the course, Steve began producing and selling the workbook and provided training sessions for parents on his instruction methods.
- Before long, one simple course grew into a full math curriculum, including the distinctive integer blocks and video lessons, and Math-U-See was born.
2000s: The Company Grows
- Our focus was initially on the rapidly expanding homeschool market, but success in intervention and special education classrooms led to expansion into schools and small group learning environments.
- As the family grew and the second generation began starting their own families, Steve and Sandi’s sons became more involved in the operation of Math-U-See. In 2012 they completed a family business transition from the first to the second generation, with Ethan Demme being selected by the board as the new President and CEO of Demme Learning. Steve and Sandi moved to roles on the board and Steve increased his focus on developing additional resources for Building Faith Families.
- In 2014 Demme Learning launched KinderTown, an education apps platform for parents with young learners. And in 2015, Demme Learning added another sibling to the family of products: Spelling You See, a comprehensive spelling program built on our same core principles including multisensory instruction.
- Demme Learning acquired Analytical Grammar in July 2020. Analytical Grammar is a systematic approach to language mastery that helps students understand grammar conceptually.
- WriteShop joins the Demme Learning Family of products in January 2022. WriteShop provides hands-on, interactive lessons that engage students and gently guide them through each step of the writing process.
Today: Demme Learning’s focus continues to be on building lifelong learning and is committed to providing the best educational materials possible for parents, teachers, and students.
