Tutoring and academic coaching both aim towards improving a student’s knowledge and skills. As proof of this improvement, the student’s grades pull up. This boosts the student’s self-confidence and motivation to learn more.

However, tutoring differs from academic coaching in application. Tutoring is often applied when the student has difficulty in one subject area, such as Math, Science or English. The tutor’s expertise with a particular subject is very beneficial in this case.

Academic coaching works better when the student has difficulties in multiple subjects. It incorporates tutoring, which focuses on specific goals, such as finishing homework on time, achieving a certain level of reading comprehension or increasing grades from C to A.

Academic coaching also works towards those goals, but the in-home tutor who practices academic coaching goes beyond simple tutoring. The best tutors work with parents and teachers in creating a strategic plan for improving a student’s academic skills as well as life skills, such as time management and goal setting. In effect, a good tutor to hire is someone who knows academic coaching. This person is responsible for teaching your child how to read for retention, how to break down projects into components, how to do quality control, and how to take notes effectively.

Aside from the professional credentials, such as degrees and certificates, you should look for other qualities, such as trustworthiness and reliability, in an in-home tutor. However, we do not easily see these qualities in a person when we first meet them. The best way to find evidence that an in-home tutor has these desirable qualities is to look for the following telltale clues:

• They attract the best students. They often have a full schedule as well as a waiting list of students.
• Their junior colleagues praise them. Good tutors help their fellow tutors, especially the beginners. They act as mentors to other tutors as well as to their students.
• They have strong referrals from parents and previous students. Testimonials have a strong effect on people. If these parents and students think this particular tutor is the best there is, then they may be right. There is no reason they would be lying, right?
• Their students are at the top of their class. This is, perhaps, the best proof of a tutor’s skills in sharing knowledge and developing skills. If that person can deliver excellent results, then he or she is surely one of the best.

Your tutoring agency also matches your child’s personality with the tutor’s personality. Share with your agency your child’s needs and preferences. They will make sure you will have the best in-home tutor for your child.

A tutor of the opposite gender as your child raises concerns in some parents. Currently, parents can never be too careful with a stranger taking advantage of their children. The possibility of misdemeanor or abuse strongly exists, which prompted many tutoring agencies to perform thorough background checks, including an FBI sex offender search, on all their professional tutors.

However, this concern may be needless. Focusing on the tutor’s gender prevents you from seeing the other good qualities of a tutor. The strict selection of in-home tutors assures parents that tutoring companies always hire reliable, well-trained and highly educated employees. When you really think of it, the worst that can happen is that your child will develop a crush on his or her tutor.

A good tutor will know what to do with a schoolgirl crush. A professional tutor will never encourage the infatuation to bloom. When you hire a tutor, check his credentials. When you meet him in person, your instincts will tell you whether that person is trustworthy or not.

The relationship between the tutor and the student or the tutee defines the quality of tutoring your child gets. The tutor’s level of authority and the age difference determines how the relationship progresses. Sometimes, peer tutoring works, but other times, a child may need an older and wiser tutor to lead.

The tutor and the student relate well with each other if they are nearer in age than with an older tutor. The in-home tutor who is also in college or is fresh from college knows how to communicate with a high school student. However, a more experienced tutor who is older and wiser can handle serious cases, such as those students with learning disabilities or those with emotional problems that impede their studies.

When the relationship between tutor and student fails, awkward moments and feelings of discomfort interrupt the learning process. In addition, the tutor fails to achieve the goals of in-home tutoring, which include building trust and camaraderie with one’s tutee. That is why it is very important for tutors to maintain a good professional relationship with their tutees or students.

Most professional tutors received training in adapting to the different personalities and the special needs of their students. However, some tutors forget sometimes to exercise utmost patience with their students. Aside from that, eh personalities of tutors do not always fit with the personality of their tutees.

Aside from being patient and flexible, the tutor should also be keen enough to know if the child is enjoying or is already bored with the tutoring methods. The tutor may practice a teaching style that does not fit the student’s learning style. This may cause some problems because a person’s style of learning often reflects in the teaching method applied. If a tutor does not know how to adjust to the learning style of the student, then a learning problem ensues.

Differences between the tutor and the tutee can be an obstacle to learning. However, if tutors know how to look for commonalities, then learning would be a lot more fun and easy. Even though the child has a different personality, the tutor can try to find common interests.

Finding common interests provide many benefits, the least of which is building camaraderie in the relationship. Tutors can incorporate their common interest with the student into their lessons. They can also use it as a reward for the tutee’s good performance.

Over the years, professional tutors proved to be invaluable assets in an otherwise imperfect educational system. They support the established system by imparting the love of learning through various teaching strategies. In-home tutors serve as a support for schoolchildren, and even those in high school. Tutors have taught royalties, politicians, artists and other famous personalities. There is no doubt that tutoring is effective.

However, not all tutorials turn out well due to many reasons. Many factors affect a child’s learning; thus, parents and tutors need to consider them. These factors include inexperienced tutors. Their lack of knowledge and experience make them ineffective in developing a child’s learning skills.

Although hiring the right in-house tutors is important, keeping the parents involved is also a key factor in in-home tutoring. To ensure effective tutoring, parents should get involved every step of the way. The first thing they need to do is to diagnose the problem and get the right person to fix the problem.

If you are considering in-house tutoring as a solution, then the next thing you should do is ask for a potential tutor’s referrals and credentials. Aside from that, parents should look into the tutor’s personality and personal values. He or she should possess the qualities of a good tutor.

Upon hiring a tutor, the goals and expectations should be laid out to the tutor and the child. These goals should be realistic. Parents have to make sure that the child can attain these goals. Having realistic goals would avoid frustrating the child. It also helps to set a time frame in achieving these goals. With this, parents can help tutors prepare lesson plans and modules to help the child.

Along the way, parents need to be supportive of the endeavor. They need to keep encouraging the child by giving rewards and doling out appropriate punishments. They should also maintain a positive attitude, which their child can imitate. They need to cooperate with the tutor. Improving a child’s performance is not the work of one person alone.

Education plays an important role in building your child’s dreams. As a parent, you want your child to get a quality education as well as perform well in school. Their academic performance reflects on the kind of parent you are and your personal concern for your child’s future.

However, not every child loves school. In fact, many children have developed a strong dislike towards attending school and studying in general. This negative attitude did not spring up suddenly; many factors have contributed to its growth.

Most children who suddenly lose interest in school may have some fears, such as rejection, failure and shame. Your child may have been in an incident where he or she felt rejected or embarrassed. Some children do not like to go to school when they fear bullying or when they see themselves as failures.

Because of this incident, your child’s confidence cracked under pressure. Self-surface through the crack, and if this is not fixed, the self-doubt will turn into a self-defeating attitude, which your child will carry to adulthood. For example, let us say the teacher asked your child to solve a Math problem on the board. However, he did not know how. This would surely embarrass your child, especially when the rest of the class laughed or hooted at him for his inability to do what the teacher asked.

Some children may find the school’s pace too slow, while others may find it hard to catch up. There are children who would need more time to absorb and understand new information. If the rest of the class learns fast, then those children who learn slowly will surely be left behind. As a result, they develop negative feelings towards school.

Sometimes, children hate studying because schoolwork is overwhelming. Schools today demand more time and effort from their students than what school age children and high school students normally can do. If the level of work and concentration required equals that of a college curriculum, then the young student will surely be overwhelmed.

Because of these factors, children develop an aversion of going to school, but not necessarily of learning. Parents may see their children unable to learn because they prefer not to go to school. However, there are other ways of learning, which the school is not the sole provider. One of the options is in-home tutoring.

In-home tutoring offers a great deal of help to win back a child’s love for school. Whatever the cause is, professional tutors can work with it. If the child felt embarrassed because he did not know the lesson, then in-home tutoring could build the child’s confidence and encourage him to learn more. The same is true for children who lag behind their classes. They would need the guidance of an in-home tutor to supplement the lessons from school. In-home tutors could also help manage the child’s time for projects and home work.

Tutors can choose from a variety of teaching methods available today. Each one is as unique and effective as the others, depending on the type of learning style your students rely on and their weaknesses in learning.

Teaching methods, such as peer tutorials, group tutorials, and one-on-one tutoring, help both the tutor and the student achieve their ultimate purpose: to educate. For the tutor, it is to educate the students, and for the students, it is to educate themselves.

However, among these teaching methods, one method stands out. One-on-one tutoring differs from the classroom setting in many ways. Progressive educators and forward-thinking parents believe one-on-one tutoring is more effective in teaching a child than the usual group setting in schools.

Over the years, one-on-one in-home tutoring gradually gains attention from parents who want to provide supporting methods of teaching that do not impede the child’s natural curiosity and builds the love of learning, which the classroom setting fails to do because of the sheer number of students that teachers must attend to.

With in-home tutoring, the sessions are usually one-on-one, which leaves tutors the time and energy to focus on only one student’s needs. Meanwhile, the student learns more efficiently because his or her needs are met immediately. As a result, most parents trust this method to help improve the academic performance of their children.

A lot of studies have been done on the effectiveness of in-home tutoring. These studies show that one-on-one tutoring is highly effective, especially for students with learning problems or whose health may impede attendance in a normal school. Those students who received in-home tutoring developed good study habits.

Teachers also approve of in-home tutoring as a supporting method of learning. Many of them agree that one-on-one tutoring helps as long as the in-home tutors synchronize their lessons with those of the child’s teachers. When a child has regular tutorials, the tutor can easily do retention checks and discuss those lessons that the child cannot understand.

Some children who have academic problems are shy and often have low self-confidence, which makes group tutorials ineffective for them. Group sessions are too similar to classroom setups where competition between students remain. Unlike group tutoring, a one-on-one tutoring session eliminates the possibility of other children witnessing your child’s struggle to understand the lesson.

One-on-one tutoring is like retreating from a battlefield to refill supplies and re-energize before going back into the fray. When your child is ready, you can easily shift from one-on-one tutoring to a group session until your child has learned to cope with his studies through an improved set of study skills.

Children with autism live inside their own little world, which is separate from the rest of us. Unlike other children, they have difficulty relating to others or their environment. Even their parents may have a hard time relating to them.

Autism carries a wide range of manifestations. Some children may have delayed motor-skills development. Some children find it hard to get along with other children or people. They may act and react differently towards events happening around them or to objects near them.

Children with autism hardly communicate, which educators may find as one of the biggest challenges in their careers. Experts say that most children with autism can be educated for them to function well in the society. They just need to be in the proper institution, with good support from the family.

Specialized programs for teaching these special children exist. Various schools dedicated to children with special needs, including children with autism, help them learn how to communicate, to be self-sufficient, and to cope with both internal and external stimuli.

According to an article by Lucy Ward, published in UK’s The Guardian, an in-home tutor can help develop the IQ of children with autism. This conclusion comes from a British “early intensive behavioral intervention” (EIBI) study, which exposed toddlers in the program to intensive one-on-one in-house tutoring for two years.

The results showed that by the end of the study, some toddlers enrolled in the program increased their IQ by 40 points. The method allowed autistic children to enroll into mainstream classrooms so their peers will not leave them behind in their lessons.

This goes to show that having an in-house tutor can be very helpful in the child’s development. This also means that children with autism have the hope of living a nearly normal life.

Observe your child or ask your child’s teacher or in-home tutor how well your child is doing with school and homework. Professional tutors and teachers usually sense when the child has a learning problem. To help you in determining your child’s learning abilities, read the following symptoms of sensory integration problems, which Optimum Learning from Australia has provided in its free booklet for parents and educators.

• Short term memory problems
• Information goes in one ear and out the other
• Your child may not be able to remember more than one or two items from a list of four verbal instructions.
• Your child may have learned and understood tables one day, but totally forget them the next day.
• Poor reading comprehension
• Messy writing: while the attention is on what to write (auditory channel), there is no attention on how it looks (visual channel).
• Phonetic spelling: the attention is only on what it sounds like and not on what it looks like.
• A student may learn easier with the teacher whose teaching method matches the child’s learning style, such as visual or auditory. The child does not have to shift from one sensory channel to another to translate the lessons.

When the child has problems with left and right brain integration, the following behavioral signs are present:

• Poor reading skills: comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and speed may be all affected
• Reversals of “b” and “d,” numbers or “was” for “saw”
• Visual problems, as the left eye and the right eye do not communicate efficiently
• Poor eye-hand coordination
• Poor handwriting skills, i.e. capitals where they do not belong, letter size and spacing are irregular, and lines are often ignored, although these may have been pointed out to the child many times.
• Poor story writing skills, as creative ideas are processed in the right brain and grammar and punctuation are processed in the left brain
• Poor spelling: there may be reversals of letters in words, there is an extra letter, or a letter is missing (often an “n”, “r” or “l”). The child does not say the word while looking at a picture of a word. This is an example of a survival strategy used by children who can only use one side of the brain at a time.
• Exam blanks

If you or your child’s tutor or teacher observed many of these symptoms, then it is possible your child has a learning problem. Immediately consult a learning and child development specialist for correct diagnosis. Many special education schools can be trusted to help your child learn and develop the necessary skills for a healthy adult life.

Dyslexia is the most common cause of problems in writing, spelling and reading. About 20% of the population has some language learning disability and about 80% of them have dyslexia.

Children with dyslexia often have a high level of intelligence, but they were often mistaken as slow learners because of their condition. They lag behind their classes. This builds frustration within them and changes their attitudes towards school. They lose their interest, which greatly affects their academic performance.

Dyslexia can take many forms at different intensities, which makes a correct diagnosis of dyslexia difficult. Some children with dyslexia do not receive the proper attention for their learning problem.

Indirectly, in-home tutoring helps children with dyslexia, although it is not part of therapy. A correct diagnosis should always come first. From this, educators and parents can create a learning program to help dyslexics cope with school.

If the problem is indeed dyslexia, then there are professional tutors specially trained to teach children with dyslexia. They have specialized modules and learning materials that make learning fun and easy for any child.

Tutorial modules for children with dyslexia involve sensory activities. Since they have trouble reading texts they can learn through the other senses like through listening to music. Most children with dyslexia can do easy reading of very simple text, but have trouble with higher level reading skills, such as paragraphs.

In-home tutors can help the child improve reading and writing skills by giving various exercises that gradually develop the child’s confidence. The child eventually succeeds in learning along with classmates in a regular classroom setting.

Children with learning disabilities benefit more from in-home tutoring than ordinary students can. A trained in-home tutor can address the needs of a child with a learning disability on the educational and emotional level. Specialists and learning therapists can address the medical and practical needs of the child.

Some learning disabilities include:

• Dyslexia: This learning disorder affects the ability to read or perceive printed words. Children with dyslexia usually see words and letters printed backwards. For example, they see the letter “b” as “d” or read words like “on” as “no.” The reason points to left eye dominance, which reads from right to left.

• Dyscalculia: As the name implies, this learning disability results to difficulty in grasping mathematical concepts and impairs problem-solving skills. Most children and adults have difficulty with and anxiety in solving Math problems. Dyscalculia, however, reveals extreme difficulty in understanding the relationship between numbers, the value of money in coins and paper, sequences and instructions, and even spatial information, such as the difference between left and right.

• Dysgraphia: This learning disability involves difficulty in writing. Aside from widespread computer use, lack of awareness of this learning disability makes it difficult to diagnose. Some children just have bad handwriting, but when they tire easily when writing and they often omit certain words in their written sentences, then they likely have dysgraphia.

Children with learning disabilities are just as able bodied as the rest of their peers. They eat the same food and can play sports if they want to. However, they need special methods in teaching to grasp even the simplest concepts and develop the basic reading and writing skills.

These children need more attention, patience and understanding from both their parents and the educators. Some parents prefer to enroll their children in special education classes that require students either to spend the whole day at school or to spend a few hours in class. These parents often prefer to hire a learning specialist or an in-home tutor trained in special education to help their children after school.

An individualized, skill-based approach often succeeds in helping children with learning disabilities where regular classroom instruction fails. By cooperating with special education tutors, parents can help formulate an individualized education program for their child. They identify the tasks a child can or cannot do, and the child’s strengths and weaknesses. By employing the stronger senses and bypassing the disabilities, many children can develop needed skills.

We all use Math in every aspect of our daily lives. From the measurements we make every time we prepare food to the number of coins we had in our pockets, Math inevitably proves itself a very useful tool. If we do not study Math well, then we will find it difficult to manage even our personal finances.

However, few people truly appreciate Math. The general dislike for numbers probably lies in the complexity of equations and formulas we had to study in school. In time, we learned to dread the subject of Math, and the exams we had to take just to pass through grade school, and then through high school and college.

When high school seniors decide what their major in college will be, most of them would look for a course that requires less Math subjects. If they had to take Math subjects, then they prefer the basic courses. To some extent, most people suffer from math anxiety at different levels and with varying degrees of severity.

Most students normally experience anxiety during a Math exam. However, other students experience strong anxiety attacks when asked to solve a Math problem on the board. The combination of Math anxiety and the fear of public disgrace proved too much for some students that they would rather miss class and risk their grades than face another hour of calculating x and y.

Students used to perceive Math teachers as strict disciplinarians, which stems from the fact that Mathematics is a very exact discipline. The probability of getting the wrong answer is very high. This may embarrass the students and make them lose self-confidence. Thus, math anxiety inevitably develops.

There are many ways to overcome math anxiety. As a first step, the student must regain confidence in solving a simple Math problem. To strengthen this, the tutor or teacher should give rewards and hold back on the punishment. This method of reward and punishment comes from Educational Psychology principles.

Through in-home tutoring, the student avoids facing embarrassment and ridicule from fellow classmates. At the same time, positive feedback from an in-home tutor appear more personal and sincere because the relationship between the tutor and tutee is closer than between a teacher and student in a classroom setting.

In-home tutoring provides a less stressful atmosphere, which makes learning Math easy and fun. Professional tutors can give their tutees tips, such as shortcut methods and less known techniques to solve Math problems. An article by Peter Gray in Psychology Today, posted April 15, 2010, supports this, saying, “Math outside of school is fun, useful, and joyfully learned.”

A sudden drop in the grades of your child indicates a disturbance in learning, but it does not necessarily mean your child needs tutoring. Disturbances, such as a death in the family, a long period of illness or a sudden change in the child’s home life, can affect the child’s grades.

Another factor contributing to low academic performance could be the absence of challenges in school. The child might be a fast learner who finds the pace of regular classes boring. The teacher and the teaching method also affect a child’s performance. Changes in the child’s social circle also affect the child’s attitude towards school and learning.

While most children easily cope with demanding schoolwork, some kids lack the intellectual stamina to keep up. A pattern of low grades and lack of initiative to participate in school show a set of alarming behavior in children. These children need more attention and help from someone who understands their difficulties in learning.

A teacher can help, but the rigid schedule at school, and the strict rules of some schools in disallowing tutoring jobs for their faculty, restricts the capacity of a teacher to tutor students beyond school hours. Hiring a professional seems a better alternative, aside from parents putting in time helping their children with schoolwork.

In-house tutoring, as opposed to online tutoring, provides more than academic assistance. Another human being who does not appear to be on the same level of authority as teachers eases the flow of learning. Pressure from maintaining good grades, getting high scores in exams, and competing with other children do not exist in in-house tutoring.

The most important basis for hiring an in-house tutor answers the question: Does your child actually need tutoring? Observe your child’s attitude towards learning. Is your child showing distaste to studying? Does it affect your child’s self-esteem? If the answer to these questions is yes, then you should consider in-house tutoring. If he or she remains curious and exhibits a desire to know, then the problem could be in school.

Some parents prefer to give their child a chance to recover from low grades. However, if you see your child try his or her best, and yet grades remain low, then it would be better to hire an in-house tutor.

Most of the time teachers take a proactive approach and recommend tutorials to students who seem to require some help. The teachers usually call the attention of the parents and discuss with them how to help their child cope up with schoolwork.

Parents often have second thoughts when hiring tutors. They hesitate because they hope the child can still improve without the need for a tutor. The think children can overcome that phase eventually.

Some parents mistake tutors as expensive ways to deal with their child’s academic woes. This wrong perception probably came from novels and films featuring scenes of governesses and private tutors working for the rich.

However, times have changed and private tutors do not only work for the rich, but more so for the disadvantaged students who truly need their help. Aside from that, private in-home tutors do not charge exorbitant fees to help children learn.

If you and your child feel a tutor will greatly help improve your child’ academic performance, then you should look for the following qualities when hiring a professional tutor:

Well-trained: Look for tutors who have undergone the right training to handle children with learning disabilities, behavior problems, and other possible causes for the child’s difficulty in dealing with lessons and pressure at school.

Also, seek the ones with extensive training in the subjects they tutor; ask for certifications and recommendations from previous employers and from previous clients, if possible. A tutor has to be equipped with the necessary knowledge that he or she can impart to the child.

Positive attitude: A tutor must have a personal investment in the child’s welfare. Look for someone who loves children and teaching. This positive attitude leads to positive actions during the tutorial sessions. A tutor with a positive attitude motivates the child to take the initiative to learn.

Passionate: This trait often goes with a positive attitude. The tutor who loves what he or she is doing can impart the same love of learning to the child. This same trait also leads the tutor to show patience and determination in helping the child.

Reliable: Being reliable as a tutor has many indicators. Professional tutors are punctual and prompt. They come to the scheduled time and place early and well prepared for every lesson.

Empathetic: A tutor who can put himself or herself in the shoes of the child would be a good choice. A good tutor understands how the child feels and knows how to relate to the child. While the tutor has the expertise and knowledge to teach, he or she should also learn to pace the lessons according to the child’s learning style and speed.

Face-to-face interviews, recommendations and feedback from other clients help parents decide which tutor to hire. To be sure, parents should hire a tutor from a reputable source, such as from an agency or from an online source, which provides testimonials from previous clients.

Tutoring generally implies a one-on-one interaction between the student (called the tutee) and the teacher (referred to as a tutor). Unlike classroom teaching, tutoring focuses on individualization of learning, which many educators claim as the best way to learn.

Experts say optimal learning happens when teachers handle less than 15 students at the same time. The teachers allocate more time on each of the students, thereby, increasing academic achievement. However, advocates of educational reform say individualization of learning is better than decreased class size.

In-home tutoring best exemplifies individualization of learning. Unlike center-based tutoring, an in-house tutor can spend a few hours each day on each student. The in-house tutor discovers each tutee’s learning style and applies the appropriate methods of instruction.

Comparatively, center-based tutoring leaves little time for individualized instruction or help. Without this one-on-one interaction, center-based tutoring turns into a burden to a child that is already behind.

Furthermore, center-based tutoring limits the place and time of tutoring sessions. The company that runs the tutoring center dictates the time for the sessions. The center’s location may not also be ideal for some parents, who may have limited transportation options.

Other parents turn towards online tutoring as an alternative, but the lack of direct human interaction may not be good for children with learning problems. Online instruction coupled with interactive quizzes is ideal for independent learning, a method unfit for students who need help.

At first, the Internet was just a novelty, something to look over and experiment with, but since then, its use has pervaded every aspect our modern lives, specifically in education. The Internet plays a vital role in education. Its power to bring together people for learning in what we call online tutoring best exemplifies this role.

Online tutoring usually brings together tutors and tutees in a virtual setting. They meet in a chat room, a website or a forum and arrange specific times to hold tutoring sessions. These times often factor in the differences in time zones between the two parties.

Although commonly associated with language teaching, online tutoring also has other uses. Online tutoring facilitates learning in Math and Science subjects, especially when immediate feedback is given and interactive quizzes and educational games are available for downloads.
However, the popularity of online tutoring does not necessarily mean it can now replace in-home tutoring. Differences between these two types of tutoring present their respective advantages and disadvantages over each other.

Online tutoring requires the use of the computer with a web cam, and a headset with microphone. The student and tutor should have good Internet speed rates that can handle VoIP connections. In-home tutoring, on the other hand, requires less equipment for both tutors and students to hold tutoring sessions.

Online tutoring sessions, especially when pre-recorded material is available, allows flexibility in scheduling. However, it does not allow tutors to work alongside the student’s teachers because of disparity in location. To get over this hurdle, the tutors can provide feedback to the teachers and the parents through email.

Yet, in-home tutoring remains a very effective supplement to institutional learning. The structures of our education system do not permit freedom in learning. An in-home tutor fills in the gaps while fulfilling the role of learning facilitator. A learning facilitator makes learning desirable and easy, especially when the student has difficulties with the subject.

In-home tutoring is also appropriate for helping students with learning disabilities. The tutor functions as a learning facilitator as well as a therapist. Conversely, online tutoring often lacks the human interaction, which plays an important role in therapy and learning.

When considering the kind of tutoring their child needs, parents should factor in each tutoring type’s advantages and disadvantages, as well as the equipment requirements and the tutor’s qualifications.

Stepping Stone Tutors, a home tutor service specializing in matching students with local tutors announces a new milestone, six years in business. In addition to hiring mostly credentialed teachers and professionals with graduate degrees, Stepping Stone Tutors, since its inception, has never required contracts and conducts a 50 state criminal and sex offender background check on every applicant.

Bend, OR (PRWEB) January 27, 2010 — Stepping Stone Tutors, a company specializing in home tutoring for K-12 subjects, including test-prep for the ASVAB, GED, SAT, and ACT announces a new milestone, six years in business.

“The down economy has definitely increased the number of tutors looking for jobs which is great for us because we have an excellent pool of very experienced tutors to choose from” says Cogen. In addition to hiring mostly credentialed teachers and professionals with graduate degrees, Stepping Stone Tutors, since its inception, has never required contracts and conducts a 50 state criminal and sex offender background check on every applicant.

Stepping Stone Tutors

Stepping Stone Tutors, a home tutor service specializing in matching students with local tutors announces a new milestone, six years in business. “When we first started out, the company was actually called ‘Book Worm Tutoring’ but right up the road in Carlsbad, CA (we were in San Diego at the time) there was another service called ‘Book Worm Tutors’ so within the first month of being in business we had to change the name. The funny thing is that I don’t even think the other company is still in business. After building a website I realized ‘well I should probably go hire some tutors now.’ I’ll always remember sitting down with the first group of Stepping Stone Tutor applicants at Cafe976 and hiring the first 6 tutors. You know after that, you go back to the office and more or less wait for the phone to ring” said Andrew Cogen, CEO of Stepping Stone Tutors. And the phone did ring (and ring, and ring) until a small operation of a handful of tutors morphed into a network of more than 150 tutors throughout the West coast and Southwest.

With Stepping Stone Tutors, students are able to request an in-home tutor for their location and within 24 hours (or less) start working on current assignments or get ready for an upcoming test. The company provides home tutors for nearly every grade level and subject matter. Students are able to meet with tutors face-to-face as frequently or infrequently as needed and are able to develop long-term relationships that can pay dividends later on.

“Aside from a ton of repeat business from returning customers we have recently started to tap into social networking to spread the word about our tutoring service” says Cogen, “We now maintain a blog or you can follow us on Twitter.”

About the Company: Stepping Stone Tutors was founded in 2004. A home tutoring service, it has matched thousands of students with home tutors in more than 18 cities nationwide.

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For a limited time Stepping Stone Tutors is offering reduced pricing for in home tutoring services.  As always, there are never any contracts or sign-up fees. Our tutors are college graduates and can help with most K-12 subjects.

In home tutoring service is available for San Diego, Irvine, Sacramento, San Jose, San Francisco, Bend, Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Denver, Colorado Springs, Dallas, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio.

Stepping Stone Tutors, a company specializing in home tutoring for K-12 subjects, announces that it now has more than 18 locations nationwide.

Bend, OR September 22, 2009 — Stepping Stone Tutors, an in-home tutoring service specializing in matching students with local tutors, announces that it now offers in-home tutoring in more than 18 cities nationwide. With so many tutors to choose from, students can be confident they will be able to find one just right for their needs, no matter what the subject.

Students are able to request a tutor for their location and within 24 hours start working on current assignments in the comfort of their own home. Each tutor is required to meet a list of requirements including education level, number of years experience, and a 50 state criminal and sex offender background search.

“Because we have been doing this since 2004, we can be pretty selective about who we hire to work for us.  I would say that probably only the top 5% of applicants are selected to become Stepping Stone Tutors.  We literally receive 100-200 applications a day for people wanted to work for us.  The problem is that just having a college degree and doing some tutoring her and there with your little brother or sister doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be a good tutor.  We look for tutors who have a genuine passion for helping students understand the material not just someone who wants to make money.  Most of our tutors have graduate degrees and are experts in the subjects they tutor and most importantly, love what they do.” said Andrew Cogen, CEO of Stepping Stone Tutors.

Stepping Stone Tutors offers tutors for nearly every grade level and subject matter. Students are able to meet with our tutors face-to-face as frequently or infrequently as needed and are able to develop long-term relationships that can pay dividends when test time comes around.

Stepping Stone Tutors began in 2004 in San Diego, CA and originally focused its efforts on the San Diego County area. Since then, the company has matched thousands of students with private tutoring service in more than 18 cities.

“We’re excited to have added over 200 tutors since we started Stepping Stone Tutors. Our tutors range from college graduates to young professionals to retirees who want to keep busy. We know that whether our students are looking for an algebra, Spanish, or English tutors we’ll be able to provide a great one. Our students’ success is very important to us and we want to make sure both our students and tutors have the tools they need to be successful,” said Cogen.

About Stepping Stone Tutors: In-home tutoring service, Stepping Stone Tutors, (http://www.steppingstonetutors.com) helps parents and students locate qualified, certified in-home tutors at an affordable price. In addition to one-on-one tutoring with math tutors, physics tutors, calculus tutors and more.

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[Re-syndicated from cbsnews.com]

All You Need To Know About Tutoring

Photo (CBS/The Early Show)

Interactive Education In AmericaBackpack ready? Learn more about education in America through fun facts, national statistics and unusual schools.

(CBS)

There are several signs that will indicate to parents that their child needs a tutor, says Edward Gordon, a tutoring consultant for the federal and state governments and author of “Tutor Quest.”

According to Gordon, parents spend approximately $8 billion a year on tutors. He said the federal government will spend about $1 billion to pay for tutors due to the “No Child Left Behind” Act that was passed by Congress in January of 2002.

Under this legislation, children who attend schools that do not meet new government standards and are determined to be “failing” schools for two consecutive years will have the option to transfer to better schools and receive tutoring.

Here are some signs to find out whether your child needs a tutor:

• Continued failing grades in school.
• Child is constantly making excuses as to why he or she is not doing homework. The student is unhappy in school or having problems in general that you are aware of.
• The teacher sends notes home to you and you have to go to school because there is disruptive behavior, a pattern that goes on for at least a full school year.”The typical pattern is the child gets a bad report card in the first semester and the second semester they get a second bad report card. In February through May, that’s when the parents typically take action and get a tutor because they don ‘t want the child to go to summer school or to repeat a grade,” Gordon says.

Gordon says there is no such thing as a lazy child. “That is a symptom. It’s a question of motivation or if the child is having a problem processing the information or if there is a problem at home, such as parents going through a divorce.”

So if your child is falling behind, Gordon recommends getting a tutor to help him or her catch up. “The purpose of tutoring is to speed up the learning process, make up the skills the child has lost and get them back up to the instructional level so the teacher in the classroom can continue the learning process with the child,” he says.

Here are some typical ways of finding a tutor:

• Network through friends
• The public library
• Teachers acquaintances, but not necessarily at the school child goes to. Gordon says the school the child attends may be hesitant to recommend a tutor for liability reasons.
• Volunteer organizations, such as church organizations
• Web sites and the yellow pages

Gordon says the first thing that any parents who are interviewing a prospective tutor should ask is how many years of experience does the person have in teaching the specific subject or area of concern. If the child has a learning disability, reading problem like dyslexia or attention deficit disorder, find out if the tutor is trained to identify and work with children who have this problem.

“You need someone with at least five years or more experience,” says Gordon. “Second, ask if they have a degree in the area they are going to teach and if they are certified to teach in this area. Many people need help in math and science, particularly high school students. Teachers who are not certified can still be good. You may have a teacher who has many years of experience teaching math on a college level and has a degree, but is not certified to teach high school.”

He notes that having degrees and experience does not necessarily mean the person will be a good teacher. “There are certain things you should look for. The teacher needs to be able to explain in laymen’s terms what they are going do, how are they going to find out what the child’s problem is and how they will go about improving the child’s skills,” he says.

Most tutoring programs work with the child on average three to four months, seeing the child for an hour’s session two to three times a week. “Less than twice a week is often a waste of time because it’s not enough assistance,” he says.

Although a tutor cannot give a guarantee, Gordon says, the tutor can give parents some idea of what their expectations should be for success.

There are two aspects of tutoring, he explains:”While the tutor is there, what they do; and afterwards, after the tutor leaves, what do they do to make sure that the homework is done. Do they check it and make sure the child does whatever the tutor suggests?” And after the tutoring is over, he says, what are you doing to continue to reinforce it on a day-to-day basis? He says parents should also make sure the child has a quiet place to study and the supplies he needs. The parent shouldn’t do the child’s homework, but be willing to help, if needed.

The primary motivation of the child to learn comes from the parent, Gordon says. The following is a list of things that a parent should do to reinforce what the tutor is doing:

• Check homework everyday (assigned by the school and the tutor).
• Structure time to do homework
• Provide a quiet place to study
• Be available to help, but don’t do the work
• Show that reading and education are important.

Gordon estimates that the cost to hire a private tutor in the U.S. ranges from to $20 to $150 an hour, depending on the area of the country and what the tutor is doing.

© MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[re-syndicated from wsj.com]

By Sue Shellenbarger

Associated Press

Most times when I try to teach my children something – how to mow the lawn, do a budget or clean a toilet – I feel as if I have a positive or at least a neutral effect – with one big exception.

When I have tried to tutor my children in school, or simply help with homework, I often feel like Typhoid Mary. In most cases I have managed only to confuse them.

As the school year revs up, many parents are now trying to figure out how best to help their kids academically. More parents are trying to tutor their kids at ever-younger ages, as pressures mount for even the youngest children to perform well in school. Based on my e-mail, though, tutoring is no slam-dunk for parents; many puzzle over how they can wield deep professional skills at work, yet fail so completely at tutoring their children in related skills at home.

Studies on the value of parent tutoring for elementary-age children yield mixed results, as shown here and here.

For older students, say Duke University researchers Nancy Hill and Diana Tyson in a recently published study, parental tutoring is linked to worse performance in school. By middle school, the researchers say, students may see parents’ attempts to help as interference or pressure. Parents often confuse students by presenting material in different ways than teachers. Also, parents may not dive in to help until a student is already in trouble, and the students know that, reinforcing their discouragement.

Parents who are anxious about school or test performance can easily infect their kids with the same angst. One mother I interviewed, who started a professional tutoring service helping students prepare for the SAT and ACT, says she spends a lot of time undoing the anxiety and confusion caused by parents who try first to tutor their kids themselves.

If do-it-yourself tutoring is your only option, confer with teachers and brush up your skills before you begin, experts say. Don’t make the mistake I did – trying to figure out your kids’ homework while working side-by-side with them. Working with my stepdaughter on her algebra homework years ago, I found her assignments so baffling that I had to give up in frustration. And my son and I halted our junior-high algebra sessions years ago, after several meltdowns. He’s been doing great ever since – with no help whatsoever from me. I have watched in joy and relief as he has surpassed me in math, both in grades and the difficulty of his courses.

Readers, what has been your experience tutoring your own children? Have you found ways to make the sessions work?

]Re-syndicated from “The Independent”]

By Jaisal Noor
From the September 18, 2009 issue | Posted in Jaisal Noor , Local

SIGN ME UP: Dan Brown, 20, enlisted at a U.S. Marine recruiting station in Brooklyn Heights in mid-September after a five-month long job search. Brown, a Jamaican immigrant, said that one of the advantages of enlisting was receiving U.S. citizenship. PHOTO: JAISAL NOOR

When high school senior Ciarra Boyd recently persuaded her friend to not join the U.S. military, she got something she was not expecting: an irate call from her friend’s recruiter.

Boyd, who lives in the South Bronx and attends Urban Academy High School on Manhattan’s East Side, says she was deeply shaken by the experience.

“He [the recruiter] is yelling at me on the phone, ‘You need to mind your business. He’s a man, he can make his own decisions. You’re lucky I don’t know where you live,’” said Boyd, a member of the Ya-Ya Network, a student-driven organization involved in “counter-recruiting,” or stopping teens from joining the military.

New regulations by New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein announced earlier this year hope to monitor U.S. military recruiters who focus on courting high school students. Under the new rules, which take effect this semester, recruiters will be banned from using class time for presentations and all 9th to 12th grade students will be given forms to opt out of the provision in the No Child Left Behind Act, which automatically releases students’ contact information to recruiters.

“I don’t want to just be fed a whole bunch of lies and possibly die in Iraq,” said Tracy Hobbs, a Flatbush senior who attends Metropolitan High School in Brownsville. Hobbs is also a member of the Ya-Ya Network.

Also under the new mandate, each school must select a school official to coordinate these efforts. Schools will also be prohibited from automatically releasing test scores and contact information to the military for students who have taken the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Test (ASVAB).

A report on student experiences with recruiters that was released by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in 2007 charges that the city’s Department of Education (DOE) has failed to protect students’ rights.

Of the 1,000 students surveyed in the report, 40 percent did not receive opt-out forms at the beginning of the school year, and 45 percent were unfamiliar with the procedure for reporting recruiter misconduct.

While optimistic, many advocates are concerned about how the rules will be implemented. Ya-Ya Network Executive Director Amy Wagner says enforcing the new regulations will be difficult if students, parents and teachers are not aware of them.

There has been so little press coverage of the new rules that when The Indypendent contacted two different military recruiter spokespeople, it appeared neither knew the regulations existed.

While this policy change is the result of six years of lobbying efforts by the NYCLU, the Students or Soldiers? Coalition and other community groups, many still worry that these changes will be inadequate to prevent teens from enlisting.

Advocates are concerned that the rules will not affect how the military disproportionally targets poorer and minority communities. According to the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker social justice organization, lower-income neighborhoods, such as the South Bronx, East New York and Flatbush, have higher rates of military recruitment, while more affluent areas have lower rates.

While recruiting rates had dropped in recent years, the economic recession, however, has forced many people, like Dan Brown, to reconsider enlisting. Brown said he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps at the Brooklyn Heights recruiting station in mid-September after looking for a job for five months. In the first six months of 2009, the military reported that it exceeded its active duty recruitment goals by 5 percent.

According to the progessive think tank National Priorities Project, in 2008 52 percent of U.S. Army recruits were under the age of 21, and 82 percent were 24 and under. The Army accounts for nearly half of total recruiting numbers.

While the new rules will make it more difficult for the military to contact students, the military collects information in many other ways, including data mining, online career tests, video games and marketing software.

With more than 260,000 high school students, New York City is the largest schooldistrict in the country. Advocates hope that Klein’s regulations will serve as an example for others districts and they plan to hold DOE accountable. Currently only a handful of other cities, including Los Angeles and Portland,Ore., limit recruitment efforts in schools.

Advocates are concerned over the absence of a provision that would allow students to report problems they may have with recruiters. “This policy fails to set out a clear, definite grievance procedure where if students have a problem, where to go, how to deal with it, ” said Ari Rosmarin, the NYCLU’s senior advocacy coordinator who has worked on the campaign to create the guidelines for the past five years.

“Advocates, community members, students, we are all looking this year to see if the DOE is actually going to live up to its word and implement this policy,” Rosmarin added.

For more information, and to download opt-out forms, visit http://www.nyclu.org/milrec/optout.