How to Find the Right Tutor for Your Child

If you’ve decided that your child would benefit from tutoring, how do you go about finding a great tutor and making sure he/she is a good fit for your child? With so many companies and individuals offering tutoring services, it can be hard to know what will work best for your student. Word to the wise: tutoring is not a one size fits all scenario. It’s best to carefully think through what your child would benefit from and let that guide you in finding a great tutor.

First Step: Reflect

Here are a few questions to reflect on that will help you identify what you’re looking for in a tutor.

1. Does my kid need help in just one subject area or several? Would it be helpful to have a tutor who is experienced/knowledgeable with different subjects?

2. Does my kid have specific learning challenges that I’d like a tutor to be familiar with/sensitive to?

3. Is time/convenience/transportation an issue? Does my kid feel comfortable with and enjoy using a computer? Would virtual or in-person tutoring be a better fit?

4. Does my kid struggle with organization, remembering and meeting deadlines, and/or study habits and skills in general? Would it be helpful to have a tutor who is well versed in these common academic issues and able to propose solutions?

5. Does my kid lack confidence in a subject or school in general? Would it be beneficial to work with a tutor who understands these issues and can help my child build his/her academic confidence?

What Makes a Great Tutor: Look for These Qualities

With your child’s needs better defined, you can now identify potential tutors. A great tutor will have the following qualities:

• Experience tutoring, teaching, coaching, and/or working with kids

• Personable and easy to communicate with

• Expertise/experience with the subject matter

• A growth mentality (focused on improvement)

• Caring and invested in students’ progress

• A holistic approach that seeks to build study habits and academic confidence

How to Find a Great Fit for Your Kid

Individual vs Tutoring Company

While there are many companies that offer reasonably priced tutoring, both in person and online, from my experience I strongly recommend choosing a person, not a company that will assign one or possibly a revolving door of (often poorly paid) tutors to work with your kid.

As a former classroom teacher and longtime tutor, I’ve become familiar with the hiring practices and approaches of many tutoring companies, and I believe that parents are better off going with a well-qualified individual tutor who works with a handful of students than a company whose business model depends on having hundreds or thousands of students (and tutors) on its roster. Successful tutoring is highly personal: it starts with the rapport between your child and a caring tutor who’s invested in your child’s academic growth.

Subject Matter Expertise PLUS Teaching Ability

We all probably remember that one teacher who was a subject matter expert but whose explanations went right over our heads. There’s a huge difference between knowing a topic well and being able to break it down in a way your kid can understand and master. Having a background in education helps, but good teaching is both a science and an art. A great tutor can break down a complicated topic and effectively reteach it to your kid. A great tutor can also get right to the heart of your child’s academic challenges (Is it just difficult material or are there gaps in skills from previous years? Motivation/study habits issues?) and start addressing them.

Virtual vs In Person

I’ll discuss this topic more in a later post, but here is a helpful infographic to break down the differences between online and in person tutoring. Infographic courtesy of Kristin Craig.

Where to Look

You can start by asking around: ask your kid’s teachers or school administrators (note that some schools have a policy prohibiting tutor recommendations), ask other parents, ask neighbors, etc. You’ll probably get some great recommendations. If not (or in addition), you can look online on freelance sites like Upwork, Guru, Craigslist, etc.

It’s always best to meet with potential tutors face to face, or via video call (FaceTime, Skype, Google Hangouts, etc.) prior to setting up tutoring. If that’s not possible, exchange emails, texts, or have a phone conversation to get a feel for their communication style and personality. Hire a tutor only after you feel comfortable that person is a good fit for your child.

Questions to Ask Potential Tutors

1. Do you work with students in-person at an office, in students’ homes, or online?

2. What subjects and grade levels are you comfortable with and experienced in tutoring?

3. Do you have a background in the field of education? Have you worked with (elementary, middle, high school) kids?

4. How would you describe your approach to tutoring? (Look for someone who has an individualized, holistic approach.)

5. If applicable: have you worked with students with special needs or learning challenges? (Not necessarily a deal breaker if the tutor seems open to learning about it and otherwise seems like a great fit.)

6. If applicable: do you work with kids on improving their organization or study habits and skills?

7. What are your payment and cancellation policies?

8. When or how often do you communicate with parents? (Look for someone who seems open to communicate with and involve parents as needed.)

9. Based on a detailed description of my child’s difficulties, how many days/hours of tutoring would you recommend per week? (This is of course ultimately your decision as a parent, but it’s helpful to hear what an experienced tutor recommends.)

If you found this article helpful, please feel free to share on social media and tag me in the post. Parents, please let me know if you have any other questions or would like to share any experiences in the comments below!

Why and How to Teach Learning Strategies and Self-Reflection about Learning

As teachers, we have quite a bit of control over how we teach topics to our students, the activities we give them to enhance learning, and the preparation materials we give out before unit tests, midterms, etc. But we don’t have much control over what students do with what we give them as soon as they leave class for the day (and sometimes even in our rooms). Some students seem to know instinctively how to assimilate the new information and skills they learn in class, while others have parents who give them helpful study tips and fill in any blanks in their understanding. But unfortunately, others leave class confused about the topics covered and lack the tools (or the sense of agency) to improve their understanding.

While teaching learning strategies is often left to the realm of special education, in my experience most students benefit from gaining some insight into their own learning habits and practices. In fact, I think teaching kids how to learn is equally if not more important as teaching them what to learn. As a former classroom teacher turned tutor, I’ve realized that by giving kids insight into their own learning process we are setting them up to be able to approach future material confidently and to learn it successfully throughout their lives.

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My goal in tutoring is to help students develop skills and habits that eventually make tutoring unnecessary, and I’ve found that one of the most powerful ways to do that is by getting them into the practice of being self reflective about their own learning. And it doesn’t take much in the way of formal teaching; with a series of questions and mostly student-driven discussions students become much more conscious of their approach to learning and about specific strategies that they can use to learn more effectively.

Clearly, one-on-one discussions with students are a great way to help them reflect on their learning, but unfortunately the classroom setting doesn’t give us much one-on-one time. I wanted to find a way to bring this beneficial practice into the classroom, so I’ve created this no-prep student self-evaluation that teachers can use and reuse throughout the year to get students thinking about the way they learn.

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Research Backed Learning Strategies

There are also some general principles about learning that are supported by research that we can pass along to students (informally, no lesson required). One is “distributed learning” (aka the spacing effect), meaning that learning is much more effective when studying is broken into smaller chunks over time than when crammed. This is especially helpful for students who have attention difficulties and may feel frustrated or bad about their need to take breaks while studying—the research shows that this is actually a better way to learn!

While old adages about studying may have said “use a familiar and comfortable study spot,” studies have shown that learning is actually enhanced when the surrounding context is varied. This means that studying in different locations, listening to different music or a variety of background noise, and with any other environmental variations can actually be beneficial.

Another learning strategy shown to be extremely effective is testing or “retrieval practice.” After spending some time studying the material, it’s best to put it away and see if we can recall it. Retrieval practice can include a formal in class assessment, or a homework assignment, but quizzing ourselves or having someone else quiz us is a great learning strategy that is supported by many studies. In How We Learn, author Benedict Carrey summarizes what’s been learned from research on retrieval practice in a 1/3 to 2/3 rule: the fastest way to learn something is to spend 1/3 of your time memorizing it and 2/3 of your time reciting it from memory.

Testing is studying, of a different and powerful kind. —Benedict Carrey

I find it helpful to share these types of strategies with students whenever possible, since it can help them make their study time more efficient.

Questions for Learning Self Reflection

Here are some questions that I want my students to be asking themselves in order to become more conscious of their learning habits and strategies. I usually take them through these types of questions a couple of times initially, and then I just remind them to ask themselves periodically.

• How did I learn about this topic initially (lecture/presentation, assigned reading, activity, research project, etc.)?

• How actively did I participate in the initially learning? What grade would I give myself for my efforts? (paying close attention, taking notes, completing the task well, reading carefully, asking questions, etc. vs zoning out, doing the minimum, skimming/skipping the reading, letting others do the work, etc.)

• How much did I learn (as a percentage of what I need to know or be able to do)? What grade would I give my current understanding of the topic?

• Could I explain the topic thoroughly to someone who knows nothing about it? Could I show someone step by step how to solve this type of problem or complete this task successfully?

• What methods usually work best for me to learn something new?

• What tools, resources, and practices can I use to get my knowledge/skill set to 100% with this topic?

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Steps for Learning Self-Evaluation

Here are some steps to take students through in order to help them evaluate their own understanding of a topic. These can be used in any subject area.

1. Identify the topic as specifically as possible.

2. State what we know, what we don’t know, and what we need to know, keeping in mind that as we proceed we may uncover more aspects of the topic that we don’t know about

3. Identify the learning method: lecture with slides? Assigned reading? Research project? Informational video? Etc.

4. identify other learning methods/tools/resources that might be helpful or have been helpful in the past: asking the teacher for help, asking a friend, watching a video online, reading more online, rewriting my notes, doing additional practice, etc

5. Evaluate how much we know now: 50%? 75%? 100%? Etc.

6. Repeat the steps until understanding is at or near 100%.

Incorporate Learning Self-Reflections in the Classroom

I think self-reflection is one of the most important practices that we can pass along to students. Becoming more reflective about our own learning habits and strategies, as well as taking ownership over our learning, is a lifelong skill with so many benefits. I’ve created a resource that can be used with students in grades 6+ in any subject area for this purpose. It has three different self-evaluations: pre-semester, pre-assessment (to be used at the end of a unit but prior to a unit test), and post-assessment (for students to reflect on their learning during the unit and their preparation for and performance on the unit test).

Click on the photo below to get this resource and please let me know what you think about teaching learning strategies and self-reflection about learning!