When children start having difficulty in school, their love for learning soon begins to fade. Poor grades, social problems, and even problems at home are the inevitable results. If your child is having problems at school, or perhaps you’re having trouble yourself as a high school or college student, finding the right tutor might be the answer.
Finding a tutor is the first step.
The first place to start looking for tutoring assistance is in the educational system. Teachers and professors will often moonlight for a little extra pay and give a student the extra help he or she needs. College towns usually have no shortage of tutoring skills available. Tutors can be found in the student body of the college or university by contacting the institution’s office of student affairs or hanging a note with your phone number in places student gather to eat and study.
Checking for online tutoring services will produce good results. Tutorial services connect the student with a tutor who will work with him or her as needed. The results will be improved grades, an increased comprehension level and a better all-around attitude toward the learning process.
Another place to look for tutoring assistance is the local social services agency. Referrals to excellent tutors may be available since the need is a common one. An excellent tutor can sometimes be found this way.
A potential tutor should never be hired without at least a minimal checking of references. It certainly would also be worthwhile to check with a site like Family Watchdog, which contains a database of known offenders. And just to be sure, always be present or nearby when a tutor meets with your children.
Posted under Parents and Children, Tutoring
This post was written by Diane Palumbo on January 29, 2009
Great post Diane. I’m the director of Los Angeles Tutor and San Diego Tutor. We offer in home tutoring to students in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas. It’s really important to find a tutor that meshes will with the student and is able to make the student really understand the material in a comfortable environment. It’s not enough for the tutor to just know the material…..he or she has to be able to communicate and teach the material to the student in a way that the student will understand. Tutors need to teach their students how to learn and apply, not just memorize material. We have a great paragraph on the first page of our websites which talks about how to choose the best tutor.
I also wanted to mention that we offer free tutoring to families that are unable to pay for supplemental tutoring help. We have a very easy scholarship application on our website that I encourage all families to apply for. With schools being as competitive as they are, we want to offer everyone the opportunity to get tutoring, even if they can’t afford it. I’ve included a link to our websites below for your convenience. We are always open to getting feedback so please let us know what we can do better to help. Thanks for post and listening.
As far as online tutoring is concerned, there is often a need to distinguish between the ‘tutoring companies’ which employ hundreds of tutors and the tutors who teach themselves on the net.
A very important aspect in selecting the tutors, as brought out in the above posts is the continuity of the tutor. With large tutoring companies it is often a problem as their tutors tend to a large number of children and thus are not available to continue with a single child. Thus the child is left to adjust to each of the tutors he comes across with and at best is able to achieve topic help rather than a supportive, continued learning.
Tutors having their own websites are a rarity probably due to the costs involved. However the ones who are able to make themselves available on the net directly or through tutor directories are most likely to do well.