What to Expect When You Hire a Tutor for Your Child
And when to expect results
(plus another question you should be asking)...
After asking whether tutoring will help their child, parents often want to know how soon they’ll see results. The timing varies based on each child’s current skill level, learning challenges, subject complexity, and personality.
First, a thorough assessment…
Understanding the tutoring model and its implementation can help address these questions. A tutoring firm typically offers a defined model with clear guidelines for families, outlining steps toward educational objectives and accommodating individual student needs. The initial phase of the tutoring process generally involves an evaluation, which may consist of a formal, diagnostic grade-specific assessment, observational analysis, and qualitative factors. These elements aim to provide insight into the student’s interests, confidence level, learning preferences, educational challenges, and other relevant circumstances.
While the assessment phase should be structured around an established framework, the elements of each assessment will vary, depending on the circumstances of each student. The completion of the initial assessment (“initial” because the student is usually assessed throughout the engagement to ensure the plan is on track and to flag needed adjustments), will be followed by a descriptive tutoring plan. This plan will involve scheduled tutoring sessions, supplemental support sessions, consistent study and practice time for the student, progress monitoring protocols, and guidance for parents around supporting their child through the student’s path to proficiency.
A good plan leads to clarity and peace of mind…
A well-defined plan is the beginning of the student and parents’ ability to see “light at the end of the tunnel.” Clarity around existing proficiency gaps and root causes of these gaps – whether it is subject comprehension, inadequate study skills, poor organizational habits, unique learning challenges, etc. – coupled with a clear path to addressing these issues with lasting solutions is essential for success and will start putting minds at ease.
Within the first two-three weeks of the engagement, something very powerful usually takes place, especially for those students who have convinced themselves that success in the tutored subject is out of their reach. As the student spends time with the tutor, they will begin to become aware of, even feel, the confidence that their tutor has in their ability to achieve proficiency in that subject, or multiple subjects. This is a significant piece of the tutoring that occurs as the student begins to grasp the material while becoming more sure of themselves.
A game-changer for students…
We can’t express how important this phase is, as it is often a game-changer for the student, considerably altering the student’s perspective and feeding much-needed confidence. Our tutors naturally become role models and mentors, in additional to instructional coaches, and a unique connection is formed between the student and tutor. This can actually perplex some parents who have tried to assist their child in the same subject, perhaps even provided similar guidance as did the tutor. But the tutor is not the parent, and for reasons that have existed since the beginning of time, kids don’t always listen to their parents as they listen to others (If so, we would quickly lose many of our customers).
As the first few sessions set in, the tutor will help the student to learn, or re-learn the tutored subjects, often helping the student to look at problems and tasks in a new perspective. This leads to comprehension of these subjects, which will be tracked and communicated to the parents, and will start to shape a picture of how the student is doing. The progress in subject proficiency feed confidence levels and growing confidence puts the student in the right frame of mind for the next subjects. This is the cycle parents and students are desiring and typically leads to noticeable improvements. The progress path will be tracked and communicated by a good tutoring company. At Proficiency Builders, we use our proprietary PrepLogX Readiness Dashboard, which regularly communicates progress, or a student’s level of readiness for an upcoming exam or project.
So, will tutoring help and how long will it take?…
Getting back to the original questions of “will tutoring work for my child and how long will tutoring take to start working?”, the answers, of course, are different for each student. Generally speaking, here are some considerations based on tutoring thousands of students:
Within a few sessions, students usually start to comprehend a topic(s) that was perplexing to them, or to have organizational clarity around an outline for a complex project, with first steps in the outline completed. If the student is committing to their part of the study plan – consistently studying and practicing the targeted subjects/focused work on the defined steps that lead to completion of a project – progress should be clear in class reports and in progress data from the tutoring company, such as communicated in our PrepLogX Readiness Dashboard.
In four to six weeks, reports from schools such as exam scores and project grades should reflect the tutoring progress with improved scores. These scores should correspond with progress reporting from the tutoring company.
For tutoring that has been in place since the beginning or near start of the semester, and provided that the student has committed to and executed their part of the tutoring plan, final semester grades should reflect significant progress in the tutored subject(s). A plan for tutoring that was initiated to correct the course of a deteriorating grade should have a realistic goal, accounting for time left in the semester to achieve the best grade possible.
A fresh attitude with lasting, essential skills…
Shortly after the start of the engagement, parents should see a difference in their child’s attitude towards the class and related study and practice. Indifference or frustration should start to diminish while confidence, focus, and purpose become more evident. Equally important to quantitative scores as a reflection of tutoring success, the student should have developed and started to use study strategies and organizational skills for the tutored subject and apply them to additional and future classes and endeavors. These are essential skills that should be learned and reinforced through the tutoring process.
But, here is the key question:
A closing recommendation around the questions of will tutoring work?, and when will it work?, is to change the perspective, and ask “how can tutoring work for my child?” If your child does indeed need tutoring then an experienced tutoring company with a team dedicated to the success of students can undoubtedly help your child. Partnering with the right tutoring company empowers you to take control and ask this question and take action!
