How To Find The Right Tutor And Keep Your Child Motivated

More and more parents are turning to home tuition to augment the learning their children receive at regular school. This may be to develop gifted children in an accelerated way, focus on improving grades in a specific subject, or to deal with non academic challenges such self confidence and motivation.

In line with this demand there is also an ever growing supply of home tuition services both on-line and off-line including individual tutors and home tuition agencies. So how do you make an informed decision about which tutoring service to use? The mere fact that you are considering additional tutoring for your child shows you wish only what is best for him or her. Depending on the age of your child if you can, get your child involved right from the start. When he or she believes they are part of the decision making process you have already started to get your child motivated.

Setting Goals

Before doing any research into what tuition services are available make sure you are absolutely clear as to what it is you wish for your child. Get your child involved if you can, work together and establish clear goals, that is, know exactly what you wish to achieve and know how you will recognize that you have achieved it.

When selecting a tutoring service, it’s imperative to know what you want to get out of the relationship. Whether your child is struggling with a specific subject or is gifted and needs accelerated learning, or needs help in preparing for examinations understanding the specific needs of your child will help you when you begin your research to determine whether or not the tutoring services you find are right for your child.

Research

Most Modern individual tutors and tutoring services have websites explaining who they are, what they specialize in their fee structures and so on. If this is the first time you are looking for additional tutoring, look for a reputable home tuition agency which should have more than enough information on their website everything from the subjects they offer and their philosophy of education to statements about the qualifications of their tutors and testimonials from satisfied clients. Pay particular attention to testimonials from children – the real customers.

Those of you who are familiar with tutoring and home tuition may feel comfortable enough to deal directly with individual tutors who specialize in the subject for which your child needs help. For those of you who are less familiar there are points to take into consideration over and above setting goals mentioned earlier.

Personalized Learning

This is where individual home tuition comes into its own. It can be very difficult to keep your child motivated if he or she is part of a larger group being tutored by one of the tutoring services. In many ways this can be the same learning environment as the normal classroom.

Each child is unique with his or her own preferred learning style and study habits. Also the exact kind of tutoring he or she needs may be different from others. For these reasons, one-on-one home tutoring is your best option. Motivation is a very important factor in your child achieving his or her best. A professional home tutor has the expertise to notice when the motivation wanes and knows what action to take to resolve it.

Evaluations and Assessments

How is it possible for an on-line tutoring service to know what is the ideal tuition program for your child if they haven’t met your child or is lacking in adequate information to make an accurate assessment?

Any reputable and professional home tuition service will wish to conduct an initial evaluation as a means of determining the right tutoring program for your child. This evaluation then forms the basis against which all progress can be assessed. Assessments should be conducted at regular intervals to ensure your child is on track or otherwise.

Should your child be falling behind in a given subject, the home tutor will recognize this and take the remedial action necessary to keep your child motivated.

Not To Overly Concern About the Scores

It is natural to expect our child’s to get good marks, but not to overly concern about the scores.
Think about below three situations, what would you say if you were the parents?

Scenario 1: Any improvement?
Albert scored 75 for his Mathematics test in March. In May, he obtained 75 for Mathematics again. His mother was disappointed because she expected him to show improvement, after all the coaching from his private tutor.

Scenario 2: Did he slip?
Benny’s mark for the first English test was 70 and he scored 65 for his second test. His mother was horrified as she expected a better grade after she spent much time tutoring him

Scenario 3: Time for celebration?
Calvin scored 10 marks more for the recent Chinese test, compared to his previous results. His mother was rather pleased

All three mothers may be wrong! When we compare two scores, it’s easy to be misled. Tests cover different topics of different standards and usually syllabi list easier topics earlier. So, though Albert scored 75 for both tests, he may have in fact made an improvement if the later one was more difficult. However, such gains are not reflected in the marks. This same principle works for Benny and Calvin.

An increase in scores may not reflect improvement. Conversely, a decrease may not signify lack of progress either. The crucial factor is the relative difficulty levels of the two examinations.

In recent times, examination results have become highly emotional events for students, and parents perhaps, it is important to know that every score is relative to other factors, which are essential for the correct interpretation of results. Sometimes, such pertinent information Is not available to you as a parent. So what’s critical is your child’s self-esteem. Encourage and support your in his progress and not be overly concerned about scores.