I will be very candid with you in this regard. I love to tutor, and I enjoy making a living doing it,
but I will not tell anyone tutoring is needed if it is not. It is not fair to your child, it is not fair
to your wallet, and it would be unconscionable of anyone to do this. If a tutor is any good at all,
his job is to put himself out of a job.
I generally talk with the parent(s) on the phone to see why the child/parent(s) feel(s) a tutor is necessary.
After a couple of bad tests and the student feels he can not do it, a tutor is probably needed, and the sooner
the student receives tutoring, the sooner he will be done tutoring. But parents contact a tutor
for other reasons, too - SATs, ACTs, Alabama Math
Graduation Exam, keeping the grade point high for college, just to name a few. All of these are areas
in which I can help your child, but meeting on an "as needed" basis would probably be more appropriate for his needs.
Other reasons could be to teach better study habits or organizational skills, both of which can easily bring
a grade down, and have nothing to do with being lost in math. As with all teens, they listen to another adult
better than they listen to their parents.
If you are concerned, and want another opinion without having an expensive, indepth assessment, feel free to
contact me. I may have been a tutor long before I became a parent, but I am a mom first. I am much more concerned about
a child's well-being than I am about signing up a new client.
Weekly private sessions are $35 per session.
Weekly private sessions at school are $40 per session.
Occasional private sessions are $40 per session.
A session is 55 minutes long, with the last 5 minutes used to make and explain homework, if assigned. Sessions at a school are half a block.
I truly believe repetition is necessary to take a concept from our short-term memory to our long-term memory – especially when it is a subject that is difficult to us, or we do not like. At times, I will assign homework targeting exactly what your child and I covered in the tutoring session. It should not take longer than 15 – 20 minutes a night, unless school is not in session. If your child will do this homework every night, he will not need to cover it over and over with me, as it will transfer to his long-term memory. This is very important in speeding up his learning, bringing his grade up faster, and costing you less money! As I have written all the programs used to generate the homework, I ask that you do not share this homework with other people you know. I have spent a great deal of time making the homework for the children I tutor. If homework is needed, the last 5 minutes of session will be used to print out and explain the homework.
If I do not already know your child’s teacher, I will meet her/him. I will stay in contact through email two to three times a month, asking about grades, up coming tests, and how your child is doing. Please contact the teacher to allow him to talk with me. In general, teachers bend over backwards to help me and your child!!!
Once a child is in high school, grades are very important. Depending on the child’s class grade, level of understanding for next test, and what is being covered on the next test, I may tutor only that next test’s material and not previous material, to help raise the next test grade immediately. Many times I start with a child this way. I call it “putting a band-aid on the grade.” First, let’s stop the bleeding of points from the grade, and once that is better, then we go back, take the assessment test, and look at his overall math knowledge.
There are times that a child only needs help in a few areas, or with a mid-term or a final. If I have an open tutoring session, or we are able to find a time that works for both of us, I am more than happy to help a child on a specific concept, a single test on which he tested poorly, or before he takes a test about which he is concerned. I have a few students that only come to me to study for mid-terms and finals. Heaven knows, we all get lost every once in a while!
I tutor during normal school weeks, therefore excluding Thanksgiving Break, Christmas Break, and Spring Break. If I am in town during a break, I would be more than happy to schedule a separate time to tutor your child, but the regular schedule will not apply.
I know children get sick 10 minutes before you need to be somewhere. I will not charge for missing a tutoring session when your child is sick. However, should he be sick a lot, it may be in both of our best interests if I do not tutor your child any more.
In addition to those times, I know things come up! If you know an event is coming up and your child will miss the tutoring session, or he has a group project and the group is meeting during our scheduled time, and he needs to be at that meeting, please let me know in advance! I understand that life gets in the way at times! There will be no charge with advanced notice.
I arrange my schedule to make sure I will be fully available to your child, and I do not charge for missed sessions due to sickness or special events. Sessions that do not need to be used to study for a test are the perfect time to go back and fill in the gaps of a child’s missing knowledge, not a great time to skip tutoring. If a child misses more than one tutoring session per semester, I will charge you a normal tutoring fee. Please, do not have your child call me a little before he is to meet me asking if he has to come to tutoring or if he can skip. This is your decision, not mine, and will be counted as a "no show." If there are several "no shows," we may decide it is best to stop tutoring. As I am sure you do not want to pay me for doing nothing, I do not like to take money for doing nothing, and I could fill that time with another student.
Although I have experience as a tutor with some learning disabilities, and the Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, I do not have a specialty in this area. If this is a concern of yours, I am happy to talk to you about your circumstances. I have tutored several students with learning disabilities, and I started with each one of them telling the parents that I might not be the right person to help, but that I am willing to learn about his disability, so that I can tutor him better. If the parents and student were willing, I was willing, and we should be able to tell within three sessions if I would be able help him. I am more than happy to provide references in this area, if you have concerns.
The short answer is yes, but it is very rare. Most of the time, by the time a child has found a tutor,
he is behind in class enough that having another student in the room is intimidating. He is down enough
on himself, and does not need anything that would keep him from asking me questions.
I am considering starting up group sessions specifically for the A/B maths. A/B math classes
cover the entire math book in one semester, either Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, Pre-Calculus, or
Calculus. These classes move very quickly, and some students struggle only because of the speed of
the classes. These are not students with previous math difficulties. I have considered opening group
sessions that would cover only what is covered each week in the class, so that before a student falls
behind, he has remedial help during the same week.
Finals week’s schedule will not be the "normal" tutoring schedule. Once the school has set the schedule for finals, contact me as soon as you can so that we can find a good time for your child to meet with me. One or two nights before the math final is commonly when the students prefer to meet with me. If I have time available, I am happy to have (an) extra session(s) with your child that week.
Yes. I fully believe that it is my job to put myself out of a job with your child. I would not be a good tutor if I planned to have a student indefinitely. After "grading" his assessment test, I can give you a reasonable estimate of how long it should take your child and me to complete our task of increase his math knowledge and comfort. But, my estimate is completely contingent upon your child’s desire to learn and his efforts to learn it.
We all have had classes we did not like and people from whom we could not learn. If I feel I am not helping your child, I will be very candid and tell you. I will be just as candid with you and your child if I feel your child is not doing something he needs to be doing. I talk with the teachers, and they are extremely helpful to me and their students! They give me a lot of feed back. That being said, most of the students I tutor are teenagers, and things you and I as adults see as bumps in the road, are big deals in their lives, so sometimes just a little pep talk, or asking how they are doing will do the trick, and get them back on track. If not, I will bring it up with you in front of your child.