Gone are the days when students accepted their low grades and could hardly do anything about it. Nowadays, with a rise in ease in the availability of tutors to work and improve on their learning ability, and if there is any problem, nip that problem in the bud before it becomes something more complicated. Are you confused about whether your child is such a student who needs a tutor? Actually, there are several reasons why a child needs a tutor. Be it having trouble completing homework, facing difficulty in learning, getting low grades, lacking confidence, failing in time management, or skipping school, if you do not want your child to face any of these challenging situations, you need to find the best tutor for him or her immediately.
How exactly can a tutor be your child’s angel in disguise?
Research says well-designed tutoring programs, assisted by qualified instructors, can be positively effective in the improvement of children’s reading skills. From a good private tutor, children can get undivided attention, which they often lack in crowded classrooms. This helps children avoid struggling to keep up with their academics and feel stress-free while learning during holidays or after school. In other words, a good tutor helps children develop the skill of learning and studying. And these skills set them up towards success for their entire life.
To help your child become successful in improving academic performance, self-esteem, confidence, study habits, and behavioral skill, you need to find the right tutor. And to do this you should consider a few things.
Today’s post will discuss the top eleven factors that you should consider to pick the right tutor for your child. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the discussion.
1. Know Your Child’s Needs
Before finding a tutor, talk to your child about where he or she is struggling with academics. Is it a particular subject, a note-taking skill, or preparing for exams? You can also ask your child’s school teachers and know what level of help is needed, what areas need to be improved and how his or her learning style is. Being aware of the areas your child needs improvement will help you find the best tutoring program.
2. Think about Your Priorities
Depending on your convenience, expense, and child’s requirements, you should hire a tutor. Thus there is no one-type-suits-all when it comes to choosing a tutor for your child. You just need to figure out which type best suits your child. If you opt for a teacher who teaches a group of students at once, find out the maximum number of students per class. If you choose a one-on-one tutoring session, still you need to find out whether the location is convenient and the cost is budget-friendly for you to get the best possible result.
3. Check for Locations
Instead of going a long distance to find a teacher, you should try to find one from your nearby locations. This can save you a significant amount of time that you would otherwise spend on travelling. Also, having a tutor from a nearby location allows you to reach him/her easily in any critical situation like exams.
4. Reach for Recommendations
If you get to know about teachers who have already worked with the children in your neighborhood, they are more likely to be able to help your child too. Therefore start your search by asking your child’s school teachers, guidance counselor, and other students’ parents whether any good tutors provide after-school teaching assistance. Also, you can consider advertisements in local newspapers, leaflets or magazines as good resources.
5. Inquire Tutoring Agencies
Contact an authorised tutoring agency for assistance. You can know about such agencies from parenting magazines, TV or radio advertisements and websites. As a good tutoring agency always employs qualified tutors who have specialisations in particular subjects and ages, it can make the process of finding the best tutor for your child hassle-free.
6. Choose Online Tutoring
Choose the right online platform where finding tutors for after school learning is easy. A good online platform acts as a learning community where you can enroll your child and get connected to the right teachers for learning particular subjects or skills. Also, you can connect to parents of other children with the same learning needs as your child.
When it comes to having one-on-one guidance in any particular subject, online tutoring provides more flexibility than any tutoring agency or private tutor. The maximum learning is commonly managed over online chats, sessions, telecommunications, and other advanced virtual methods. This way the entire communication between teachers and students gets perfectly streamlined.
7. Go through Credentials
Before making the final decision about hiring a tutor for your child, make sure that the tutor is qualified and experienced enough to teach the subject or skill your child needs a guide with. Inquire whether he or she has experience in teaching children of the same age and learning style as your child. If you do not find a tutor who is credentialed especially for the grade level your child is in, choose the one who has at least a college degree and completed any teacher training program from an authorised source. This will make it certain that the tutor understands the academic theory, instructional design, and remedial perspectives.
Also, the tutor should be patient, cheerful, encouraging and congenial with children. So, don’t forget to give a thought to the tutor’s attitude and personality.
8. Check on Price
Be it an online tutoring program, private tutor or tutoring agency, before making the final decision you should know a comprehensive pricing plan that includes the number of sessions and cost per session. There should be transparency regarding payment requirements and additional fees for tests and materials.
Private tutoring lessons can sometimes seem pricey. However, the feeling you get after seeing how wonderfully your child gets personalised attention from the teacher is simply priceless. You will understand why this is a worthy investment for your child. Still, if you seriously want to control your budget, make things work by considering online lessons. Mostly, these are less costly than in-home or in-person lessons as you get the option to save money by not having to travel anywhere.
9. Contact the School
You can consider your child’s school as a good resource to know about where to find tutors. Some schools provide after schools study sessions, focusing on children’s common problem areas. Even some schools conduct programs for senior students to help junior students or parents to take a voluntary stand. Being associated with a school helps you get the tutoring assistance that is mainly focused on the expectations for particular grade levels.
10. Trust Word-of-mouth Advertising
The best thing about word-of-mouth advertising is it is free yet quite effective. Talk about your tutor requirements among your friends, neighbours, and coworkers. Perhaps any of your closed ones could meet your requirement. Your near and dear ones are the trusted source of information and thus finding a tutor through them helps you be aware of the pros and cons of diverse approaches. Discussing with your friends and family members can give you an understanding of a tutor’s personality, expertise, and teaching methods. Furthermore, you may find out unadvertised discounts or available time slots of the tutor.
11. Search in Your Network
Have you ever thought of asking any close family members, friends or neighbors to provide teaching guidance to your child? If you haven’t yet and your child is feeling nervous about being tutored by a stranger, you can give it a try. Arrange a schedule that works well with the person in your close network and agree on compensation; this can turn out to be a perfect arrangement for your child. Make sure the person understands the seriousness of the arrangement. Also, ensure your child shows respect to the person as an authority.
It takes a lot of considerations for finding and hiring the right tutor for your child. And with the right tutor, you can make private tutoring fun for your child.
Are you still struggling to find the best tutor for your child?
Talentnook is here to help. Here, you can register yourself as a parent and access qualified teachers from your neighborhood. Let us know what your child would like to learn and we are here to help you.