Online Tutoring: The Both Sides

Online tutoring is all about using web services or the internet for tutorials or tutoring activities.  Students would be learning from their tutors through the use of internet.  Online tutoring or e-tutoring would need certain applications and programs, like instant messaging that would make discussions possible.  Aside from discussions and lectures done through internet and web conferencing, quizzes, exam results, and recommendations are also done through the internet.

For some parents, it would be better to get regular and traditional tutors that would teach their children face to face.  There are some parents who are wiling to avail online tutoring services because their children seem to be more productive.  But online tutoring is not totally beneficial, it would have its disadvantages too.

Disadvantages

If you are a tutor planning to offer online tutoring services, then it would be totally important for you to have access to a reliable computer equipment, internet connection, tutorial applications that would help children with their tutoring session.  Sometimes, there would also be bandwidth speed requirements so that the applications would work efficiently.

Preparing the lessons would take much of your time, which is why online tutoring is also demanding.  Online teachers are needed to prepare or answer customer support and feedback.  Aside from that, teachers would also have to prepare different materials like whiteboard and this could entail a lot of time.

Since, lessons are not face to face, there would be times when students would lose focus faster making it hard for tutors to teach the lessons effectively.  There are too many distractions, like television, radio and other websites that could divert your student’s attention.   Teachers find it more difficult to build rapport with their students when teaching online.

Advantages

We could say that online tutoring benefits could outnumber its disadvantages.  The best thing about online tutoring is that it is flexible.  The child would be able to identify what kind of help and how much help is needed from online tutors and tutoring groups.  Regardless of the time, a child would not have trouble looking for help.  He can do homework while seeking additional help from the online tutors.

Parents and children would also be able to set coaching sessions on the most convenient time.  Parents would be able to fit it to their busy schedule, while children can still continue in participating in extracurricular activities.  These schedules are agreed before sessions start.  Just make sure that you would be abiding to these schedules.  You could also easily have coaching sessions since you just need to have internet access to connect with the online tutors.

It is typical for some parents to find it difficult to leave their children in the custody of tutors.  Of course, parents would always worry about their kids’ safety during private sessions. For some concerned parents, getting good tutors and educational support without sacrificing their children’s safety could be answered by online tutoring.

Some parents also find that getting online tutors is more affordable, especially those that have computers and internet connection at home.  Paying online tuition is also hassle free, since you do not have to bring the payment to the tutor’s home or to the tutorial institution.  Aside from that, online tutoring allows a tutor to focus more on the child and handle academic difficulties.

How Can Kids Benefit from Tutoring at Home?

With the more competitive—not to mention more stressful—academic environment today, more and more students are having a hard time keeping up with the demands of the school. Experts say that one of the major reasons why students—especially the younger ones—get tired or bored schooling is that they are given many assignments without somebody who finds time in tutoring them.

Recent studies show that lack of help is one of the major reasons why students—especially those in the middle grade—lose interest in studying. This is because they feel that they should be having fun at this stage but instead, they are bombarded with lots of work at school that push them to the limit. To avoid more complicated problems, now is the best time to opt for tutoring options at home for children who are having "school fatigue".

What does tutoring do?

Students—especially those who are not academically inclined—easily get overwhelmed with tasks they are given at school. Most often that not, they tend to be below average that to be labeled as "low IQ" student. The same scenario happens during checking of homework. There are kids who choose not to show their assignment and be given zero as a rating than to face humiliation once he or she did not get the correct answer or weren’t able to complete the school task.

These scenarios at school can be prevented if people inside the house—parents, siblings and even immediate relatives—would take the time to give some guidance and help to the child who is having problems at school work.

Many teachers as well as school officials agree that students who get tutoring at home show better academic performance than those who are not. It shows that kids gain not only knowledge when tutoring sessions are done at home but he or she also gains self-confidence which is very important in making it in school.

Another advantage of tutoring at home is that the child feels secure. If the child feels that there is somebody that he or she can ask for help when it comes to assignment, it will be easier for him or her to open up about the other difficulties being experienced at school. A child who is having problems in school work may hesitate to ask for help by him or herself thinking what the perception of other people on him or her. The tendency of is, more often than not, the child gets the wrong answer because he or she was anxious while doing it.

Experts say that making the child feel that he or she can ask for help to people around will boost the confidence he or she has. Being confident in his or her capability and skills is a very important foundation so he or she could accomplish goals and dreams in the future.

If the child is able to recognize who are the right people to turn to for help in completing his or her academic requirements and tasks, he or she will know that no matter how hard the these are, there would be always somebody to guide and teach him or her how to do it the proper way.

Aside from building the good foundation, providing help—through tutoring sessions at home—will also make him or her understand what are the areas that need improvement. These may pertain to subjects taken in school or certain topics that need reviewing.

Effective Tutoring Strategies That Parents Could Use

Parenting is indeed one of the most difficult yet rewarding experiences any person could ever experience in his or her lifetime because the future of any child will greatly depend on what kind of parenting his or her parents practiced. Experts say that good parenting is equally important especially is the child is ready for schooling since parents would be expected to be involved with activities such as tutoring them.

If you are one of those parents who are having a difficult time in helping their kids with their assignments, the best way to go about is find a schedule solely for this activity. This is very important for kids because if they know that their parents would take a tine off just to help them out with their homework, they will gain more confidence in doing their future homework on their own.

Setting academic goals at home

Majority of the parents who have school-aged kids would agree that the number hindrance for them to help their kids in their assignment would be lack of time. This is because majority of them are working to make both ends meet for their respective families. However, this economic struggle does not serve as an excuse not to help the child in his or her schoolwork.

For parents who would want to help their kids on their schooling despite busy schedule, one of the best strategies that might work when you are tutoring your child at home is by asking him or her to summarize the lessons and the homework after school hours.

This is important because you are not only training your child to put things in order but you are also making the task easier for the both of you. Try to ask the child to summarize her or his homework before you get home after work so you can read it as soon as you get to the house and attend to it. If you already have a summary of the assignments of the child, it will be easier for you what to look for. This will also give you more time to research when the homework is quite technical or needs further explanation.

Another strategy is to get the child's understanding of the list of homework. To avoid spoon-feeding of information when you help your child do his or her schoolwork, try to get the child's understanding of the assignment. Through this, you will know where the child should improve on in terms of looking at situations in or outside the school.

You can also allow the child to finish an assignment on his or her own first. This is very important so the child would understand that although you are tutoring him or her, it doesn’t mean that you will be the one who will do the assignment and finish them for the next day's class. It is very important to make the child understand that you are just there to provide help or assistance and she or he must be the one who will do the bulk of the homework and not you.

Lastly, make sure that you have breaks during or in between tutoring sessions because some kids get easily tired if they are bombarded with so many information at school and even at work. To avoid the child from getting bored when you help him or her on doing the schoolwork at home, give breaks at least every 20 minutes and let the child do what he or she loves to do.

Can One-on-One Tutoring Helps a Struggling Reader?

Reading problems can be prevented if the indicators are detected early and intervention is implemented immediately. Tutoring can be one of the options but it can be critical. Tension among tutoring elements might cause positive or negative results on the learning process. All beginning reading instruction should contain a balanced oral reading for fluency, alphabetic and comprehension according to a study. Effective tutoring needs carefully graded materials as it allows children to be placed according to their instructional level.

Another important factor to look into is the frequency and duration of tutoring. According to Susan B. Neuman and David K. Dickinson, "reading recovery" lessons tutoring program for example, should be done in 30 minutes and continued every day from 12 to 20 weeks. The routine can only be stopped when they reach a level of performance consistent with their classmates in the middle reading group or when they already show characteristics of problem solving with new words and independent processing of texts.

Further, they cited that in "Success for All tutoring" program children are given 20 minutes daily in 8-week cycles tutorial classes. Then, their improvement/performance is observed within that period. Depending on the results, children are assessed whether they may be circulated in or out of tutoring. In "Success for All" tutoring, it is important for children to be tutored as long as they need it. In contrast, "Success for All" tutoring is only given 2 days of training along with all other beginning reading teachers in the school.

In tutoring programs like "reading recovery" tutors are basically mentored for a full year by a "reading recovery" trainer. Through the one whole year, tutors are taught to make ongoing decisions about tutoring tasks that are responsive to the knowledge and interests of the child. In essence, success depends on the acquired knowledge of the tutor who is especially trained to perform a daily changes in the response of the child.

Within the school environment, assessment and instruction must be coupled to advance student achievement in reading. When classroom teachers only use advance student advancement, it is probable that valuable instructional is lost to over testing. Communication is restricted by the lack of common parlance and the connection gets misplaced in the shuffle. Consideration must be given to the student like using common assessments to inform teachers to determine whom to serve with which intervention and where and how.

Tutoring plays an important role to children who are struggling to read. Research shows that by continuing them to support with additional reading instruction across the grades, the current proportion of children with reading difficulty can be reduced to 5% or less.

One on one tutoring can provide direct, systematic, intense instruction that is responsive to the knowledge and interests to the child. Researchers on reading difficulties concluded that the only way to provide opportunities for some children to acquire normal reading is to provide one-in-one instruction over a significant period of time.

Building on rich interpersonal relationships, reading tutors can provide individualized, elaborated and specific instructions on the right level, time and child -- a task that is often difficult to achieve in a classroom setting. "By enlisting the human resources inherent on every home, school, and community, we can ensure that every child learns to read, one child at a time (469).

Tutoring For Kids With Learning Disabilities

If your kid is falling behind in school work, then tutoring could help in boosting those grades.  But if your child has a diagnosed learning disability (LD), then you should have a specialized tutor that can handle the disability.

Children with disability cannot improve on their own, they need somebody to help them and show them how to learn easily.  Most people would think that learning disabilities are intellectual defects, but actually is has something to do with how the brain functions.  Problems in processing sensory information are reasons for learning disabilities.

The most common learning disabilities are:

• Dyslexia – Children with dyslexia would experience problem in processing language.  They would encounter problem in reading, writing, spelling and speaking.

• Dyscalculia -  Children with dyscalculia would mainly have problems in math.  In general, they would have difficulty in solving math problems, understanding time and using money.

• Dysgraphia – This kind of learning disability could result to problems with writing, spelling and organizing ideas.

• Dyspraxia – This is a sensory integration disorder.  Those who suffered this learning disability would have difficulty in motor skills, hand and eye coordination, balance and manual dexterity.

• Auditory Processing disorder- Just the same as its name, it would be about problems in hearing and differentiating sounds which would affect their reading, comprehension and also language.

• Visual Processing Disorder- This is mainly about problems in interpreting and reading visual information like maps, charts, symbols and pictures.

A tutor would be able to reinforce lessons taught in school.  A tutor can also help the children develop their study skills which is a positive manner. A tutor would also help the children get as much practice as they need to learn and overcome their disabilities. Surveys have also showed that it a child is tutored, there would be a relative increase in self-confidence ad esteem.

When choosing tutors for children with learning disabilities, we would like to extra cautious.  Getting a tutor who cannot understand and cope with the disability, would make the child and the tutor very frustrated on the end of the day.  You would have to remember several things when looking for a tutor for kids with LD.

When getting a tutor, you should first explain to your children that it is not about making your child pity themselves.  It is to help them cope with their disabilities.  You can ask your teacher or co-parent , if they could recommend several tutors that would be able to help.

Once somebody has applied for the tutor position, the first thing you do is check about the credentials, education and training, experience and references.  You can check  previous clients and see if they are satisfied with the tutoring.  Once you meet with the tutor explain clearly the needs of your child and set goals and how to achieve them.  Planning is important, you would have to be patient and at the same schedule lessons in a pace that they could easily be comfortable with.

Children with learning disabilities sometimes find it hard to deal with tutoring sessions that comes right after regular classes.  The problem is that regular school work can be very much for them, so you could schedule tutoring session times where children are not too tired and are ready to learn.

Tutoring should be an interactive time for you kids.  You would have to be conscious about that.  If your tutor is still using the same technique used in classrooms, then you would have to notify them.   Children with learning disabilities respond better to direct teaching and guided practice. It is also important that the tutor will be notifying you about any changes or improvements