When a Child Needs a Tutor
Tutoring may be the world’s second oldest profession. Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great to prepare him for the burdens of Empire. Whole lines of nobility across the centuries received instruction in arts, sciences, and letters, in the form of one-on-one tutorial. To this day, European University systems rely heavily on tutorial teaching. Under what circumstances can a student benefit from tutoring and what steps must be taken to find the right tutor? In selecting and engaging a tutor, it is important to have a sense of the specific concerns a student faces and to match those needs with the skills, orientation, and training, of the tutor. What differentiates tutoring distinctly from most classroom teaching is the fact that the tutor must concern himself not just with what a student must learn but more specifically how he must learn it. When parents or teachers talk wistfully about a child’s “study skills” they are really referring to the habits of mind which enable a person to set a goal, make a plan to achieve it, map out the steps within that plan, and then to monitor progress and points of emphasis accordingly. The tutor is an external comptroller of these habits of mind whose job is to work backward from the evidence provided by the student’s performance in order to figure out where to intervene in the learning process.
Students in need of tutoring usually fit into one or more of the following categories: those who must improve in a specific subject area; those who must compensate for a learning disability; those who have hard-to-diagnose psychological difficulties that can influence motivation and concentration; and those who would benefit in a general academic sense from the guidance and skill building associated with a positive tutoring or mentoring relationship. Often, a student may bring a combination of these categories to the table. For example, he or she may resist school tasks due to the effects of a learning disability that manifests itself in a specific discipline, like biology, for example. This subject requires much memorization, thick textual analysis, note taking, and strong organizational skills. A tutor who has a background in addressing executive functions concerns, but no experience with biology, may not be the right choice for this case. However, a tutor with some background in general study-skills and reasonable knowledge of biology not only can support the student in the specifics of this subject area, but also can help this student catalogue useful approaches to breaking down and recording complex material. This type of tutor offers many of the same qualities found in the “LD Tutor” with the added advantage of helpful support skills particular to biology and perhaps other subject areas as well. Knowing which aspects of the learning process to emphasize for your child can be the key to success in the tutoring process.
At the outset of the tutoring relationship, clarity and honesty, on the part of the tutor about his/her abilities and background, and on the part of the parent, regarding a child’s academic profile and psychological history, can greatly aid the student. Parents should question the tutor about his/her experience, approach, education and methodology. In addition, parents must be forthcoming about any educational testing or school reports as a way to give the tutor a broad sense of the student’s needs at the start of the relationship. Additionally, the tutor and family should agree upon a period of evaluation of perhaps ten or twelve meetings. This time frame is long enough to allow the tutor to make a difference but not so long as to permit time and money waste if the relationship is ineffective. Any tutoring relationship requires compatibility and comfort between student and tutor, particularly for the student. But the hallmark of the tutorial should be its effectiveness. Even a resistant student will be more likely to buy into a tutorial relationship if he/she knows there is a real chance to improve. Ultimately, the tutorial must strike a careful balance of support and accountability for the student in need. Building confidence in and stabilizing the difficulties of a student may be an initial goal. But the development of competence – and the responsibilities and skills that come with it – must be the long-term achievements of a productive tutoring relationship. Understanding the needs of the student, familiarity with the skills and background of the tutor, and monitoring of the relationship over time, offer the best chance of getting good service for the student who engages a tutor.