all about tutors

School has just started, and perhaps the last thing on any parent’s mind is tutoring. However, according to Ken Strong, owner of Club Z! In-Home Tutoring Service in Tucson, the beginning of the school year is exactly when most parents should evaluate if their child could benefit from the services of a tutor. "I see a lot of parents who wait until they get a report card that shows their child is failing a subject before calling a tutor. If parents talk to their child’s teacher early in the school year, the situation can be handled before the child is failing." Strong says that regular communication with your child’s teachers is very important because the subject matter at school is constantly changing. "A child may do fine through the progress report, and then have trouble with the curriculum after that time, meaning unless parents talk to the teacher they wouldn’t know until the next report card."

Strong admits that it can be difficult to know when your child needs a tutor – after all, almost every child has some difficulty in school at some time. He suggests that it is time for tutoring when parents and teachers agree that tutoring would be beneficial, or when parents see a marked change in behavior about school. "Kid’s might not talk about their problems at school, but they can show that there is something going on in other ways," says Strong. "I see a lot of kids that started being very negative about schoolwork, and didn’t want to go to school. Their parents investigated the cause of this behavior change and found that their child was having difficulty with their schoolwork."