<p>Lovestotravel – am shocked you were able to hire your son’s 5th/6th grade teacher as an outside tutor. Our District has strict conflict of interest policies against that type of thing. You even point out one of the advantages is you knew he would be tutored to the “teacher’s tests”. This is seriously unfair to the other students in that class.</p>
<p>My son really needs the 1 on 1 experience. We tried the after school program through the school which is staffed by teachers but he still struggled. His tutor is currently working on his masters in math and has been a great help.</p>
<p>My DD had a private tutor for math in middle school - over the summer - when the teacher recommended she move up to honors math. The tutor (lived down the block) went over things with her that I thought she had missed so she was ready for the honors class in the fall. She also had a tutor (in our home) for earth science in 8th grade. She was struggling and I couldn’t help. Both were teachers from other districts who were recommended.</p>
<p>For SATs, she took an SAT class at our public library and one with a private company (also a class though). At the time, we did that for financial reasons.</p>
<p>DS never needed a tutor until this year (HS junior). The tutor is a year and a half out of a very top college, econ/math major. She comes to our house every week, initially for AP Calc, will also go over some math SAT with DS (he just needs some brush up and tips) and we were talking tonight about how she could possibly help with AP Physics too. The reason we have her – school has finally gotten hard for DS. He enjoys it but needs to keep up the level he’s always been at as a top student. He really enjoys working with her and says it really helps. I had a conversation with DS tonight about how, at college, these services are available at tutoring centers plus you need to go to prof office hours; how important it is to seek help immediately - if there is an issue or just for reinforcement.</p>
<p>Both of my kids are very conscientious about school, so they always appreciated the tutors.</p>
<p>Both have had private music lessons too, but we don’t consider that tutoring. She helped with school band music, when necessary, but they worked more on other pieces for our annual state competition. DS had to stop soph year because he just couldn’t fit it in - I know he misses it (still plays in the band and jazz band though),.</p>
<p>We used Mathnasium when S2 was in 7th grade. It helped him to build some confidence and improved his grade. Now he is in 9th grade and taking geometry. He has not done too well this semester and has just started private tutoring which is in a classroom setting. This tutor also provides one to one for $45 an hour. Group class (one 1 hour and 40 min class/week) is $300 per semester or $18 per class.</p>
<p>No tutors for regular classes but yes for the SAT. I hired someone who came to my house for 2 hr sessions, $50 /hr for about 8 weeks. Worth every penny. I have given her name out to others. </p>
<p>I know some kids self study for the SAT but having a tutor that focuses on just you is sort of like having a trainer. Yes you could exercise without help but having someone observe and give input which parts of your body need more work or checking your form makes a big difference.</p>
<p>Not yet. I am debating whether to get a SAT tutor for my son, but for the writing section only.</p>
<p>We did not send our DD to a tutor, but we know a lot of parents who do. i would not hesitate if I thought that it would help her with a specific class - and it met our schedule and budget.</p>
<p>I never got tutored and when my mom suggested a tutor, I always denied. I didn’t need a tutor, I just need to stay on task and I’m good.</p>
<p>I have a 12th grade D with a processing disorder centered on math and analytical tasks…who simply doesn’t test well. Her first run at SAT’s were frightening, so we hired a tutor last summer to work with her an hour a week for 9 weeks on strategy and to reinforce math principles. </p>
<p>The tutor charged $60/hr, and for each hour of instruction my D received, she put in anywhere from 6-8 hours/week homework. We were happy with D’s improved results in a second round of testing, so for us it was money well spent. I would go back to this tutor in a heartbeat, if my D expressed the desire/need for pointed help in her HS math/science courses. </p>
<p>My older son took a group SAT prep class at school that was comparable in cost/duration… but more general in content. If you are willing and able to invest in test prep… just pick the format which best supports your child’s learning style.</p>
<p>Our D asked for help with her ‘third language’, so we paid for the services of a local tutor for a few months. That helped prepare her for nation-wide testing, and she also found out lots of other “smart kids” were also using that language tutor! (The tutor “bragged” to D about other tutees from her school.) That was actually an excellent side benefit: D learned that even “supposed brainiacs” use tutoring to fine-hone skills.</p>
<p>We homeschooled so I guess you could say that we tutored until the kids figured out how to learn on their own.</p>
<p>We’ve used various tutors over the years. Kids have done the ACT/SAT classes, but one-on-one works much better, especially when you narrow down an area of weakness. Do you live near a university? We’ve gotten some great college students, who are very happy to make $20/hour. I usually call or e-mail the departments (secondary ed., language, math, math help center, etc.) to ask for recommendations.</p>
<p>We hired a Chem tutor to prepare our daughter for SAT II. Her school curriculum didn’t cover about 50% of the test. I have to say, we were somewhat disappointed as she got 690. We feel she could have done just as well, or better, if she just hit the books.</p>
<p>We hired a tutor for DS when he took Calc AB as a junior in high school. Right off the bat he had a C average and we found a high school math teacher at another school in our district. We paid $65 per hour for about 6-8 1 hour tutoring sessions over the semester and DS steadily raised his grade. He ended up scoring a 5 on his AP Calc test and earned an A in the class. He is now a freshman in college majoring in Mech Engineering. He did decide to repeat Calc. 1 in college and is doing well in the class.</p>
<p>OP asked above
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<p>I never had the impression that the tutors at class settings were automatically top quality. </p>
<p>I trusted my own ability to pick out a medium quality tutor for a mundane job (supporting Spanish I homework). I found my own diamond-in-the-rough for a complicated task (diagnosing and fixing years of backlogged math confusions). I interviewed and hired the tutor. </p>
<p>Also, discouraged students who are “grouped to death” all day long at school really perk up their learning attention in 1:1 setting. The price difference is significant, but when you need a tutor for a problem, you don’t have forever to hope for slow improvement. So, out comes the wallet for a quicker fix.</p>
<p>My D. was a tutor in UG (paid position called SI - Supplemental Instructor). Yes, very many were coming to her sessions, which grew over time and prof recognized her for improving GPA in his classes. If you are interested in munbers, D’s sessions sometime included around 40 kids. They loved her sessions. She never used tutors. If she had academic questions, she would address them with us. If we could not answer, we would read her textbooks to find answer. There were no single question that we were not able to answer her, including those at college.</p>
<p>Perhaps I would feel differently if I came from a culture in which there was an expectation that all students should be getting some form of private tutoring to function in a large classroom, but I myself think something is seriously wrong when large numbers of students taking a course at any level will need to find supplemental tutoring -from a peer who has mastered the material, a private tutor, or a college supported help center - in order to get a decent grade, and this expectation is not built into the class schedule with required recitations and carefully vetted instructors (not every tutor is as adept at understanding and explaining material as MiamiDAP’s D), problem sets graded by hand and promptly analyzed for common mistakes and returned to students, or even an optional and ungraded review class between semesters or quarters for students uncertain of their preparation level before starting a course.</p>
<p>In middle school and high school, we were generally able to answer questions that our children had. Many of the teachers that my children had liked to see students do well, provided problems sets that built upon class work, suggested further problems for students needing extra practice or review, and would hold office hours on a near-daily basis before and after class. The limiting factor here was the capacity of the teacher to instruct, and the willingness of the student to seek help. (Each could be a problem in individual cases…)</p>
<p>When they ran into problems, especially in math, science, or foreign language courses, the knee-jerk response of counselors and school psychologists, however, was that maybe they weren’t really all that smart in these subjects after all and would be more comfortable in a lower level, when it turned out to be that the subject was not taught well (interesting how only a few of the tenured teachers were sending predictably large numbers of students to private tutors), texts were not clear, our student was slacking off with false confidence (this was too often the biggie), or they were not getting frequent and constructive feed-back on their performance.</p>
<p>By late high school and college, however, Frazzled kids began to meet with friends in classes to go over class material, especially in STEM classes. They seemed to do much better in their classes when they had at least one friend to work with outside of class, even if they were giving most of the help.</p>
<p>We did not use tutors, but in retrospect I can think of instances in which our children might have benefitted from this type of instruction.</p>
<p>Did you find any difference using a tutor vs. not using a tutor? For example, after using a tutor, how much her SAT increase/improved?</p>
<p>I confess that I was a bit of a snob about tutors–I always thought that where parents have the education and don’t tutor it is because they prefer to throw money at a problem instead of their own time with their kids. I have changed that tune big time…</p>
<p>I am in a quantitative field and my H and I have PhDs. I am a great test taker and we speak Spanish at home. All areas seemed covered and certainly my kids always had my help when they needed it. Frankly, it wasn’t often and mainly I was used more like a jeopardy game “spanish translation of begin”…“formula for finding the nth iteration of an arithmetic series”…etc. I am also still the go-to “quiz me, quiz me” person before vocabulary tests. I found that my kids did well in school and easily picked up a quick explanation of a math or science concept. all well and good until my D hit the toxic combination of 15 and IB math and IB physics. The level and speed of these classes is a real jump from the previous year and she is starting to have some trouble. The age/mother-daughter thing seems to have come into play also. For some reason, getting my help in math just results in bad interactions…she just wants a quick fix like for multiplication issues which is impossible with more complex concepts and I want to explain what is going on not just provide a short answer. Awful arguments ensue and I won’t help someone who is not willing to at least listen/try a different way…she will discuss her themes in English or Anthro with me or have me check her spanish essays for grammar faults but math/physics discussions end in both feeling Pod.</p>
<p>So I went online to a company to find a tutor. Two so far have b een relatively unsuccessful. they are young in or just out of college and seem to just sit while she does her homework and provide the quick answers she craves,…result are her first bad tests in math in her life. She admits that she needs someone to challenge her and to really see if she understands what she is doing, not just watch her. She finds tutoring with the young men awkward. Is it because she is very pretty? perhaps the young guys are just shy of being a little tough with her. I am going to try another older woman (stay at home mom but engineer-trained). She sounds a lot like me so that is why I like her…it will be interesting if the interaction is bad or whether just by not being her mother my daughter will be able to listen and learn. Anyone else with this type of “not if it is my mother” math-learning-block?</p>
<p>H & I are engineers. We tried to help with Trig and pre-calc, but it’s been 30-35 years since high school for us and nomenclature has changed! Plus the parental tension thing. Kahn Academy on You Tube is wonderful, wish we found it earlier. In the mean time, the SAT Math tutor we had also helped with math classes where STEM parents couldn’t. For S, he brought Math SAT up from 600 to 660 in 3 months. For friend’s D, he helped her bring SAT total up 400 points in same time frame. Both of these kids were A students.</p>