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Help with specific subjects is only a start. Tutors also work on study skills and organization
As many parents – and kids – could tell you, the curriculum at most schools these days zips along so fast that many students barely have time to comprehend one topic before they’ve moved on to the next.
That leaves many youngsters, of all abilities, struggling to keep up. At that point, parents will often turn to a tutoring service to help fill in the gaps.
In this month’s Making the Grade, we look at how tutoring can not only help your child master specific subject matter, but also can improve his or her organizational and study skills.
Richard Bock, owner of the Huntington Learning Center in Bel Air says even the brightest kids will struggle if they haven’t mastered their basic skills.
“Parents say ‘I know he’s smart.’ There’s a big difference between being smart and being skillful,” Bock says. “He may be failing algebra because he can’t do fractions.”
Bock notes that a child can’t succeed in algebra until he masters the basic math skills he may never have really learned to begin with.
The trend in tutoring these days is much broader than a single focus on a single class. The focus, instead, is on pinpointing a child’s strengths and weaknesses, building basic skills, and working on the study and organizational strategies that will carry the student from elementary school through college.
“I tell them ‘Bring your backpack,’” says Nancy Rini, Center Director for Sylvan Learning in Bel Air. “The first thing we’ll do is check the planner and make sure they’re writing everything down. Not only the assignments. If their test is on a Friday, they need to plan their study time.”
Building a child’s confidence makes a huge difference, notes Toni Marrocco, owner of Your Academic Coach. “I customize my program to suit the student. I evaluate and I see what they need…a lot of time students struggle because their confidence is down because they don’t have the basics.”
Tutoring services generally work with kids from preschool up through adult. (Adults working on their high school GED’s sometimes seek tutoring help.) College prep and SAT tutoring also account for a big slice of the pie.
The Highlands School in Bel Air is a private school for kids who learn differently. However, this past fall, the school started a new tutoring service open to the general public. “The whole idea is to unlock the child’s potential,” says Paula Moraine, the Director of the Community Outreach Center for Literacy and Tutoring at Highlands.
“We have students who may have explicit issues such as dyslexia, ADHD and students that just need tutoring,” she says.
At Confident Student of Jarrettsville, owner Mary Turos has coined the phrase “academic coaching.” It’s a different level of service than just tutoring. Confident Student conducts an in-home assessment before recommending a course of action.
“Sometimes it’s just setting the goals and the priorities. A lot of these kids are just too overscheduled, so they don’t have any time to think. So if you want to develop these thinking skills, you can’t rush through it…we develop a plan based on what we see in their grades, what we see in the home, and what their outside activities are.”
At first, kids may resent the idea of tutoring. But in the end, most youngsters have a very positive response.
“They come in for testing with this long face,” says Rini, who says their attitudes quickly improve. “It’s not like school...They all like the individual attention.”
“I’m absolutely convinced kids want to learn,” adds Bock. “If you show them they can be successful, then they love learning. It’s rare for us to have a problem with a kid not wanting to come. Most of the kids really enjoy it. That’s a huge surprise for the parents.”
When a child is struggling, homework time can turn into a battleground. Calling in a tutoring service doesn’t mean your child can’t learn, or certainly doesn’t mean you’re a bad parent. It means your family has recognized that there is something wrong, and is now taking action.
“Any sense of failure is going to create a cycle of failure,” says Turos, who says simply telling the kid to buckle down and work harder doesn’t solve anything.
“Some people have this ‘sink or swim’ mentality, but they don’t ever show the kid how to swim,” she says. “That’s just not how it works. A lot of kids need to be taught explicitly how to learn, and how to read, and how to study, and how to think. And once they can do it, they’re fine.”
What you need to know:
How much? Many tutoring companies have pricing plans to save you money, but you can expect to pay from $40 to $75 an hour.
How long? Rini, of Sylvan, says the average student receives 50 hours of instruction. Highlands has a ten session minimum. Confident Student sometimes meets with a child everyday for the first couple of weeks, although the typical child has two or three sessions a week. In most cases, however, families can sign up for more or less, depending on what’s best for them.
Where? In addition to the well-known names in the business, such as Sylvan or Huntington, you can find tutors in the classified ads, on Craigslist, or in flyers posted at your neighborhood supermarket or coffee shop.
Huntington Learning Centers
410-420-3020
www.huntingtonlearning.com
Sylvan
410-420-7340
www.tutoring.sylvanlearning.com
Confident Student
410-692-6145
www.confidentstudent.com
Your Academic Coach
410-598-7310
marrocco86@verizon.net
Highlands School
410-836-1415
www.highlandsschool.net
