“8 Secrets to Choosing a Tutor for Your Child”
When your child is struggling with some subject matter in school, you may make the decision that getting your child extra help is the best way to supplement your child’s learning so they can move forward at the same level as the rest of their class.
This is often not an easy decision to make and it can be an emotive one at that. In cases like this, a family often secures the extra help of a tutor to achieve this learning goal.
However, not all tutors are created equally.
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1. Experience: How much experience does the tutor have? How long have they tutored – a few months or many years? What successes have they had as a tutor? Ask them to provide you with their resume and at least a few reference families to contact to verify these successes, as well as to uncover any issues a family may have encountered with the tutor.
2. Flexibility: Find a tutor who can work with your family’s schedule. Are you a "night owl" or morning person, the tutor can accommodate to your lifestyle? If circumstances change in your life which affects what time you can arrange tutoring for your child, will the tutor work around your schedule, as much as possible? How about last-minute emergencies and sickness? Every-day things happen in life, beyond our control, so if you have to cancel a tutoring session due to a sick child, or some other unforeseen emergency, will the tutor be compassionate, work expediently to reschedule the session for another time and date. Most tutors request a 24-hour notice so as to not incur any additional fees.
A tutor will come to your house, saving you time and gas expenses transporting your child to another location and back. Tutors who come to your home provide other advantages as well: you can observe the tutor in action with your child, plus the child feels ‘safe’ and comfortable in their home environment.
Another very relevant consideration these days, due to the requirements of social distancing is whether the tutor is flexible, tech-savvy, and efficient enough to conduct tutoring sessions with your child online, via Zoom or some other easy-access platform.
3. Free Consultation: A good tutor will be willing to give you a free, initial consultation regarding the child’s issues, struggles, and opportunities, she/he can, therefore, sum up an overview of the ‘plan of attack’, so to speak. A free consultation is good customer service on the tutor’s part, and it’s just plain professional!
4. Specialization Level: Let’s clarify something; a tutor is a tutor and not a teacher from the traditional viewpoint. One of the benefits of hiring a tutor is the one-on-one, personal-time advantage your child will glean from this relationship.
A teacher has to deal with a multitude of students at the same time, and may not be able to delve into the level of specialization required for any one student in the classroom who has a specific struggle. Has the tutor mastered the specifics of, teaching, reading, reading comprehension, spelling writing, or illegible penmanship? Can they teach a subskill, such as honing in on just adjectives, grammar comprehension, or any other targeted area your child may be struggling with?
5. Empathy: A tutor needs to see the child’s struggle through the child’s eyes and not just their own. Empathy is a major skill for a tutor to have because the child may have pain points, due to pressure to perform well, a child senses that they’re not performing well, but often doesn't know why, or how to improve, this becomes a stressor for both the child and the family. Due to an academic weakness, a child may become shy or anti-social, or has behavior issues to try to keep others from discovering their struggle; this is a common self-conscience defense mechanism children employ. A tutor needs to see this and break through any of these barriers a child may have put up. A tutor needs to see the child’s frustrations and fears and help, not just with improving the child in their subject of weakness, but to also help build a child’s self-confidence in the process.
Will the tutor encourage the child and reward them for their progress? Will the tutor offer praise and positive reinforcement? Empathy can go a long way in determining whether a child moves forward, and a tutor needs to celebrate these moments of success with a child.
6. Determining Underlying Issues: Sometimes a child is doing poorly in an academic area, not from a simple lack of understanding subject matter, but because of some underlying issue which may not have been assessed. A good tutor can quite often spot attention-deficits disorders like ADD and ADHD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia, which may be challenging a child’s learning. Once a tutor suspects an underlying issue, they can recommend to the parents that the child could benefit from testing and move forward from there. If you are aware that your child has additional challenges, strive to hire a tutor who is trained in special-needs areas who can implement an effective, customized tutoring experience to help your child progress.
7. Passion: Does the tutor love what they do? Do they adore tutoring children with areas in which they need help? A tutor who comes from a place of passion quite often spreads this fire to a child and can help the student connect the material they are learning about something they themselves are passionate about!
8. Growth Mindset: A tutor with a fixed mindset will only approach a tutoring session as a specific event itself. A tutor with a growth mindset will approach each tutoring session as a building block to the current and future success of a child. The tutor with a growth mindset will help a child master solid, life-long learning and study habits that will help the child succeed further down the road in college and subsequently in a career.
The process for hiring a tutor should not be taken lightly, but should be pursued as prudently as you would pursue any major life decision. While what may seem like a short-term antidote that helps your child get up to speed with their learning challenges, finding the right tutor is something so much more, from building your child’s self-confidence to helping them improve their life for many years to come. Approach choosing a tutor as a life-long investment and not just a short-term fix, and do your homework; this will ensure the proper fit for your child, ensuring they will achieve countless goals with lasting benefits.
By Julie VanDyke - Content Contributor for Doris the Tutor
Doris the Tutor
(702) 558-8562
Email message me directly for a FREE Consultation to start your child’s tutoring lessons or find out more information now at: doristhetutor@gmail.com
