<p>My 6th grade niece is behind in math and reading. My sister is thinking of getting help for her at a Sylvan Learning Center. Has anyone had experience with their program? Are there other programs anyone can recommend?</p>
<p>I sent you a PM. :)</p>
<p>Yes, thank you. I wanted to send a response PM to you but I got a message that your mailbox is full and can't accept any more messages. I'll try again tomorrow.</p>
<p>Chesire92, sorry about that! Would you mind sending the PM again?</p>
<p>My daughter's experience with Sylvan in 6th grade was that it was a waste of time. Primarily because she was given a different tutor every time she went. Her tests were all over the place depending on the day and her distractibility - so they never could see that her problem was not comprehension but distraction.She had the same problem with Kumon as she never showed progress. She benefitted most from a one on one private tutor but even then the tutor ended up saying "wait until she is given a calculator and she will be fine." She could always do higher level math - but made careless mistakes with simple math. She is a junior now and makes A's in Pre-Cal and 700 on the SAT in Math with extended time and a calculator and Adderall. Its frustrating and I wish you the best!</p>
<p>If the child is in public school, I would recommend first pursuing all options offered by the school district. Usually this involves a bazillion meetings with the classroom teacher, special ed. resource teacher, school psychologist, etc., etc. BUT in a good school district the school based team will indeed come up with an effective plan. This was my experience with happykid. Each school district (and indeed each school within a given district) is its own little world so there is no guarantee that my experience would be yours.</p>
<p>What I have heard about Huntington is that the parents spent a ton of money, the kid's skills did not improve, and then someone finally had the kid evaluated by the school psychologist at his elementary school, and bingo the kid was given a diagnosis and handed off to the local LD specialists and now is thriving. It is my impression that while Huntingon (and I suppose also Sylvan) do have effective programs for regular kids who just need more supervised intensive practice, there is no formal evaluation for any LDs and hence no program for teaching the child to compensate for his/her learning difference(s).</p>
<p>We tried it to help our son with writing. The only good that came of it is he learned some test taking strategies that helped him pass the state learning assessments that have since come off transcripts, but he is no better at writing. The tutors are, shall we say...variable. Some are better than others. But the director of our center was very helpful and was quite interested in what was really going on with our son. She pointed us in the direction Executive Function issues, and we were able to at least speak to his HS English teacher about her suspicions and although he was not cut a break in terms of grading, he was often given a little more time and the English teacher watched him for improvement so she could reward it. So in that respect Sylvan was not a waste. But the cookie cutter recipes for writing were not a help to us.</p>
<p>Thank you all for giving me your opinions about Sylvan. I have conveyed the information to my sister and she found it helpful.</p>