What Every Parent Should Know About Tutoring
By Mathnasium with 65 locations throughout Florida
Most of the time, tutoring is employed for students who are actively struggling or are not excelling in any given subject. In either of these cases, gaps in the child’s foundational knowledge are the leading cause of frustration and underperformance. Without proper identification and correction, these gaps will be detrimental to the child’s future education. Effective private or group tutoring on a regular, long-term basis is a great way to fill these gaps, improve critical thinking skills, and increase confidence.
1. Student Confidence
When enrolling your student in a tutoring program, first think about your child’s attitude towards school. Are they eager to learn, or just attending class because it’s required? If the answer is the latter, the most likely cause is a lack in confidence. When a child starts seeing a tutor, their confidence is usually the first thing to improve. As the student is shown efficient methods that “make sense” to them, they begin to see a new, fun side to the material they once struggled with --leading to the confidence boost!
2. Short-Term Success
In the short-term, you will see increased confidence, comfort, comprehension, and homework grades. If you discontinue tutoring when these signs start to appear, they will slow down or disappear very quickly. This is because there has not yet been enough time for the student to build long-term mastery in their knowledge gaps. However, the initial rise in grades and confidence will be an encouraging signal to continue.
3. Long-Term Success
Long-term, your student will gain improved study habits, problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and will lose that original frustration. With a strong foundation, your child will have the tools to face new challenges yet to come. This long-term mastery of skills will translate to other aspects of their life, even seemingly unrelated topics -- benefiting them for college admissions time. Once it is time to apply for scholarships, the improved grades and bursting confidence will put your student at the top of the offer list.
4. Standardized Testing
It is almost guaranteed that your child will undergo standardized testing in school. With supplemental test prep, they will experience decreased test anxiety and increased confidence in their ability to do well. Tutoring for standardized tests should strengthen specific skills needed for the exam, along with time management and test-taking strategies. Assuming your student has a strong foundation to build upon, you will see improvements in testing scores over time with this approach.
5. Individualized, Personalized, Independent
Any tutor you consider should take into account the specific learning needs of your child. They should have a process for identifying skill gaps and then a personalized approach to fill them. Individualizing the teaching methods according to learning preferences is also vastly important for long-term mastery (e.g. kinesthetic learners will find difficulty understanding auditory explanations). Lastly, one of the biggest mistake some tutors will make is not allowing for mistakes. Independent work is still important to student success; without the freedom to make their own mistakes, the student doesn’t learn how to identify and correct them.
"For more than a decade, the Mathnasium Method™ has transformed the way kids understand and appreciate math. Larry Martinek, creator of the Mathnasium Method, has spent 40+ years designing, developing, and refining this approach based on his extensive experience teaching math to kids. We build math knowledge upon what they already know - this helps kids learn quickly and boosts their confidence right away.