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.

[Re-syndicated from cbsnews.com]

All You Need To Know About Tutoring

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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.

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The Oregon Department of Education is working on creating a test for students who speak English as their second, not first language.  It appears that the current test required for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as required by the Federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program is biased towards native English speakers.

The new test in Oregon called the “Aprenda” will cater to Spanish speaking Oregonians and will meet federal guidelines for NCLB

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a program with excellent intent but poor funding. Most school districts are faced with the decision of whether or not to use NCLB money to pay for private tutoring and what their requirements for tutoring companies providing these services should be.

Depending on the allocation requirements, schools can use the funds to hire new teachers and support staff or designate some of the money for program improvement schools which have not met their AYP goals.

Using NCLB money for private tutoring can have a positive impact for students who attend program improvement schools; however, using these state and federal funds gives school administrators fewer options when considering how to allocate money for supplies and staff at the school site.

For school districts that have decided not to use NCLB funds for private tutoring or have only allocated a small percentage for this option the other option to consider is to use most of the money for additional teachers and resources at the school and to recommend reputable private tutoring companies.