Find The Right Tutor With Three Questions

Finding the right tutor can be a daunting task, and it can be difficult to know what questions to ask.   A good tutor can make a huge impact in your child’s educational experience, and you want to be sure that you are making a good decision.   Ask the following questions to help ensure that you have a positive tutoring experience.

1.  What makes you a good tutor?

The right tutor will have a combination of knowledge, experience, and likeability.   The tutor needs to have knowledge of the subject, and you need to ask to what degree they understand the subject.    Experience is also essential to make sure that the tutor has taught students in some fashion before, whether in a classroom or as a tutor.    Some people stop after these two criteria are met, but they are not the only two things that make a good tutor.   Perhaps the most important factor is whether the tutor is likeable and personable.   Does the potential tutor seems sincere?  (Your kids will pick up on that almost immediately.)  Is this someone who would connect well with your child?   Would your child be able to be vulnerable with this person?   Finally, ask yourself, is this really someone who I want to spend an hour with my child? 

2.  What is your plan?

The right tutor will pay attention to what your specific concerns are and will create a plan to address them.   The key to a successful tutoring experience is having someone help you identify the problem, the source of the problem, and the solution.  Simply helping a student with math homework when he has struggled with math in the past won’t be a long-lasting solution.   A good tutor will be able to identify gaps from previous years and help fill in those gaps.   Similarly, if a child is struggling with reading, the tutor needs to understand the different ways that students learn to read and what to do when the strategies being taught in the classroom aren’t enough.    The right plan on how to reach the end goal is essential, and that plan will not be the same for everyone.  That is the beauty of individual instruction!

3.  How will I know if the tutoring is working?

The right tutor will communicate the progress your student is making so that you can feel confident that the tutoring is working.  It is especially helpful if the tutor is communicating with your student’s teacher to be sure that they are seeing progress in the classroom as well.    In addition, the tutor will also communicate with you about areas that still need improvement and how that works in the current plan.   When you have a tutor who is focused on accomplishing your goals, then you don’t have to cross your fingers and hope because you will know that you have made the right decision.

How to Get Your Kids To Open Up About Their Days

      We are all accustomed to giving short answers.  “How are you?” receives a “Fine.”   “What’s new?” gets a “Nothing much.”   So it’s really no wonder that when we ask our students how their days were, they will answer in a similar way.   “How was school?” gets a “Good” or a “Boring” or a “Fine.”   “What did you learn today?”  generally warrants a “Nothing.” Since they are at school for seven hours each school day, we can be fairly certain that they learned something and that something happened.  

     When we ask the right questions at the right times, we can engage even the cleverest kids who normally manage to find one-word answers to every question asked.   With the younger students, we will get a better response when we ask questions that are fun to answer.  For instance, why not ask them to tell you something that made them laugh today?   Find out things like what they would change about their teachers, who they would like to play with at recess, or who they could be nicer to in class.   Have them tell you about a student in the class who could really use a time-out or a student who helps the most.  Ask them what they would do if they were the teachers tomorrow or get creative and ask them if aliens came to school tomorrow, what would they show them about their schools. 

    Older students will typically talk more to you if you can ask them questions while engaged in some other activity.  Ask them about their days when you are driving, making dinner, or working on a project.  If they don't have to make eye contact, they feel less like you are grilling them for information.  You can ask them questions like which is their easiest class and what the other students in the class are like.  Have them tell you about the teachers, if they are fun or boring, strict or lenient.  Ask them which classes have the cutest boys/girls or what passing periods are like in the hallways.  Find out what part of the day they look forward to and what part of the day they dread. 

     It only makes sense that if we want to get our children to talk to us, we have to pay attention to what they want to talk about. Listen to which questions get the most response.  Make a mental note on the times your child opens up the most.  And most importantly, pay attention when they are talking to you!   Enjoy these times with your children, and take a moment to think about what Catherine Wallace had to say about listening to your children.