Professional, individual, private education often equates with considerable investment of time and money. It is helpful to remember that this is in fact an investment, and not simply a use of time or financial expense. What you put into it will pay dividends in the short and/or long run.
Certain steps can help you get the greatest benefit from tutoring relationships. In this first piece, we’ll touch on a few simple ways parents can help students prepare for tutoring sessions.
All too often students arrive at tutoring ill prepared to use the time wisely because they have not given adequate forethought to the meeting. While our message to many parents would be that they should refrain from micromanaging their children’s organization (thus preventing them from learning to do it themselves), in many cases we feel parents could do more to help students be prepared.
5 Simple Tips For Preparing For A Tutoring Session
- Does your son need a reminder from you to review his assignments and the materials he may need from the classroom or locker before you drive him home from school?
- Would it be effective in your household to ask your daughter what she plans to do at tutoring before you leave the house?
- How about a family calendar review on Sunday evening in which you map out the week’s commitments? This might include noting when tutoring falls and planting a seed about how that time might best be used.
- Some students needs to be encouraged to start a task before going to tutoring in order to identify the parts in which she or he will need to most help. In other cases it is wise to discourage this, such as in the case of a student who is inclined to go down the wrong path on a writing assignment on his own and who will then resist change.
- Making time to clean out backpacks and binders at home can go a long way to more effective tutoring. Some families will find, though, that this seemingly mundane task can best be accomplished directly with the tutor, who can often do this with fewer arguments and more of an eye to productive strategies. This also can allow the tutor to see past work examples that students are loathe to share.
Next time, we’ll cover some ways to schedule tutoring so that it can have maximum impact.
