While the tutor may help with the short-term goal of achieving higher grades, the question should still be posed: are your kids improving their overall study skills and developing their learning intelligence?
Sometimes tutoring can bring long-term negative effects and harm your child’s ability to trouble shoot and make him or her a passive and dependent learner. I know kids who refuse to open their textbooks before the tutor gets in the house.
Here is a simple way to determine whether hiring a tutor is necessary.
Hire a Tutor.
If your child missed several classes due to an illness or travel and is having a hard time catching up with the work, seek help from a classroom teacher and perhaps hire a tutor. Tutoring should be intensive and dedicated to the particular knowledge gap (identified by the classroom teacher). Call up the teacher and ask to define the missed chapters or modules.
Also, ask to recommend a tutor who can help your child take action and fill in those gaps. Sometimes, the teacher will offer their own help in the after school hours. Sometimes they will refer you to a source of tutors.
Don’t Hire a Tutor.
If your kid was present in class and still didn’t retain or understand the material in the first place. If you hire a tutor right away, the child will feel no obligation to pay attention in class in the future. Children may also start waiting for the tutor to arrive to help them with homework. Grades may improve temporarily, but that will rob your kid of an opportunity to think independently and learn from mistakes.
Hire a Tutor.
The most compelling reason to hire a tutor is if your child is struggling with basic schoolwork: reading, math, writing, even handwriting. In this case, don’t delay seeking help. Remedial tutoring can start at any age, but catching the problem early is best. Signs that a student needs tutoring may be frustration with a subject or schoolwork that is consistently avoided.
According to the article, which answers look correct to you? The author is open to multiple right answers. Post your answers in comments below.
- Little Nancy missed three biology classes, which covered Mendelian Genetics. Nancy is now having trouble with the homework and comes to you with the problem. What would you do?
(A) Hire a Biology Tutor
(B) Tell Nancy to speak with the Biology Teacher
(C) Print out an article on inheritance of biological features and study it yourself to then help Nancy
(D) Call up the teacher and ask for advice. Ask the teacher to define the topic (depth, chapter numbers, how will Nancy be tested, etc.). Ask for the teacher’s recommendation in Nancy’s situation (self-study, teacher’s help, tutor, etc.)
(E) Tell Nancy to find YouTube Video’s on the topic and learn.
(F) My own answer
- Nathan received his first bad grade on the big chemistry test. He was in the class all the time and says that he studied enough for the exam to get a good grade. What would you do?
(A) Hire a Chemistry Tutor.
(B) Talk to Nathan and establish how Nathan got a bad grade (Didn’t study well? Didn’t understand the requirements of the exam? Didn’t understand the material)
(C) Get in touch with the chemistry teacher and get his or her feedback.
(D) Look back over the test with Nathan and ask: “What could you do in the future to avoid getting this grade? If you could redo the work what would you do differently?”
(E) BCD
(F) My own Answer