Have you ever tried to help your son or daughter with their homework or a school project? In elementary school it’s pretty easy, but once your child enters middle school or high school, it starts getting a lot harder. Even if you know how to balance a quadratic equation, getting your son or daughter to work with you patiently isn’t a fun task for any parent. And getting help from a teacher isn’t usually a recipe for success, either.
So what are the benefits and advantages of hiring a private tutor? First, they aren’t your child’s teacher and they aren’t their parent, either. Private tutoring offers a fresh perspective and your child knows that their tutor is there to help.
Tutors Are Not Your Child’s Teachers, and Tutors Are Not Your Child’s Parents.
In addition to their educational expertise, Biltmore Tutoring’s instructors possess another set of special qualities. Namely, they aren’t your child’s teacher and they aren’t your child’s parent. In most cases, they have years of interesting job experience that they can refer back to, and so we see our students responding in a way that they don’t respond to either their teachers, their peers, or to their parents. They don’t resist instruction and they listen to advice. Most students don’t need help from a parent or from a ‘study buddy’ – but they do need help! They need help from someone that they see as a mentor, and who they know is there to save them time and effort. Instead of spending hours at the dinner table trying to grasp a concept, many students find that they can spend an hour or two a week with a private tutor and come out far ahead.
It’s a misconception that tutoring is only for students who struggle academically. Many students are getting A’s but don’t understand the material. Private tutoring can help any student perform better in school, with the added benefit of raising their confidence levels and giving them the desire to succeed.
Private Tutors Provide One-on-One Assistance
Students need one-on-one engagement to really excel academically. Unfortunately, your student’s teacher has 28 other students she must work with each day and he or she just doesn’t have the bandwidth to provide the one-on-one engagement that each child needs.
That’s were private tutoring comes in. Tutors have the ability to provide students with the one-on-one engagement they need to excel. Private tutors know the latest teaching techniques and are better able to engage students.
Your son or daughter will still have occasional questions for you, and you should always stay in touch with their grades and performance. But the pressure and stress is significantly reduced since they’re working on difficult concepts and getting motivated while working with their tutors.
In a nutshell, tutors provide one-on-one, expert engagement and support!
Tutors Provide a Different Perspective
Have you ever heard your child say, “No, that’s not the way we do it in class” or “My teacher showed me a different way” when you’re trying to help them? Many concepts that are being taught using the Common Core are taught differently than the way parents remember them (especially in mathematics).
Trying to help your child learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide has become as complicated as calculus. You may find yourself stumped by unfamiliar terms like “area model” and “rectangular array” and wrestling with division problems that require the use of dots, squares and slashes.
There are many ways to do math, for instance, and they are all valid as long as students arrive at the right answer. But many parents are left wondering if their student is really acquiring a sound understanding of math that will serve as a building block for future learning.
A private tutor will help students see the logic in the way the teacher had explained math in the classroom as well as the approach that parents might be taking at home. Through one-on-one engagement, a private tutor is able to bridge the gap between what a student is learning in the classroom and the help he might be getting elsewhere – and most importantly, to help them understand how to do it on their own.
Tutoring Bridges Gaps
Children attending elementary school have a lot of work to do. They’re learning how to read and write, comprehend what they’re reading, develop mathematical skills required for future learning, while trying to find their way through a new and ever evolving landscape. When children fail to master fundamental skills, they struggle to grasp more challenging concepts and often fall behind. Yet most public school systems will not offer any special support unless a student falls two full grades behind.
New ideas are continually being taught, of course, because each new concept and assignment is built on previous knowledge that students should have acquired.
As children grow older, gaps in education become even more apparent as they struggle to keep up with classmates and fall farther behind in their studies and understanding. Private tutoring helps to bridge these gaps and support a child’s ability to acquire critical comprehension and analysis skills before a situation arises or becomes critical.
Private Tutoring Supports Individualized Learning
Private tutoring, whether in person or online, gives a child the opportunity to take as much time as they need to explore difficult concepts, fully understand their classwork and ask questions. Additionally, tutoring provides children a safe place to ask questions they’re too shy or embarrassed to ask in class.
Tutoring Helps Build Confidence and Self-Esteem
Sometimes the most apparently self-assurred and confident child is the one who struggles the most. Even the smartest and most competent students will sometimes say, “I’m the dumbest kid in the class. Everyone else understands what’s going on except for me.”
At Biltmore Tutoring, our master’s degree or PhD level tutors will take the time to get to know your child and create a safe space for self-expression and learning, where they can discuss issues that might be affecting their ability to learn. This will enhance their feelings of self-esteem and worth as well as strengthen their skills at school.
As soon as student get caught up with school work, confidence returns and a new sense of self-worth and ability emerges. At Biltmore Tutoring, we have found that once a student gets their head above water and catches up to the class, then is able to work ahead and pre-learn upcoming material, that’s the ideal situation.
Tutoring Helps With The Common Core Standards
Common Core Standards have been implemented nationwide – so you can’t ignore them. If you’re struggling with the overly complex Common Core methods for teaching math and other basic subjects as much as your child is, private tutoring may be your best solution. Biltmore Tutoring’s private tutors are familiar with Common Core Standards and can help your child digest, understand and apply Common Core methodologies. More importantly, a good private tutor will make sure that your child is learning the basic building blocks required for future academic growth and development.
Tutoring Provides Customized Learning
A “one size fits all” approach is never the best practice when it comes to education – yet that’s exactly what most children receive in our school system.
No two students are the same. Some are auditory learners, while others are visual learners. Some learn better in groups and some prefer working by themselves in a private setting. Some children pick up complex concepts quickly, while others require more time. Private tutoring provides a customized learning environment and experience tailored to the unique learning style and preferences of each child.
Tutoring Helps to Maintain Acquired Skills During the Summer
For obvious reasons, tutoring can be beneficial for children over summer vacation. If you want to make sure your child will not lose the ground they’ve gained over the past school year, tutoring over the summer break is an effective solution. The biggest advantage of using a tutor over the summer months, as opposed to going at it on your own, is that the tutor becomes the bad guy, not you. In actuality however, once you hire a tutor, and your child is expecting it, tutoring becomes a rather routine affair that most children don’t object to during the summer months.
Summer tutoring should be used to ensure children retain what they’ve learned and to help them transition to the next grade level. Pre-learning the beginning sequences of upcoming courses gives them a huge confidence boost as they head into the next grade.
Tutoring Helps Children Excel on Standardized Tests
For many students, even some of the smartest, standardized testing is challenging. It can be particularly difficult for children who experience test anxiety. This is perhaps the most critical area that students will need help with, because every child benefits from working with a private tutor on test prep.
If your child struggles with standardized testing or needs to score well on a specific type of standardized test, such as the SAT, ACT or ISEE, then working with a tutor that specializes in standardized testing can be very effective.
If you’re interested in learning more about private tutoring for your child, click this link and request more information. The Asheville area has the highest SAT scores in the state, and that’s not an accident. Thousands of students have worked with our tutors and received scholarships worth millions of dollars. Starting that process is easy, and will reduce the pressure your child feels at test time.