Are you thinking about hiring a qualified tutor for your son or daughter this summer? As a parent and experienced teacher and tutor with Beyond the Classroom, I have spent many summers supporting students in various capacities, both academically and personally. Here I will share some of the benefits of hiring a summer tutor and ways your child can work to get ahead for the next academic year.
Summer tutors can work with their students in a number of capacities:
- Retrospectively – looking back at material covered in the previous grade and going over areas of improvement. This helps when students return to school and need to build on their existing curriculum knowledge
- Telescopically – looking ahead at the upcoming curriculum and the many challenges to come.
- Fine tuning of skills – looking for gaps in current knowledge and improving skill level
Does my Child Need a Tutor?
You may be asking yourself, does my child need a summer tutor? Whether they achieved straight As last year or failed math, booking a summer tutor for even a few sessions can help them expand and explore their skill set and more importantly give them the confidence boost they need to step back into the classroom next year.
Some signs that indicate your child may be in need of summer tutoring include a decrease in attainment on their most recent report card, you may have noticed some negative changes in their behaviour over the past year, their motivation towards learning is decreasing or your child just may not be getting enough one-to-one support they need for certain skills like reading, writing and math. Other students may even show signs of boredom in class and hiring a summer tutor to stretch and challenge them with enrichment work, specially designed projects or personalized mentoring may get them engaged and ready for the new school year!
What are the Benefits of Having a Summer Tutor?
Investing a little in a qualified tutor can go a long way, especially in boosting your child’s confidence in their own abilities. Here are just a few of the benefits of hiring a tutor this summer:
- Reinforcing content from last year – At the end of a school year, a child is filled with the stimulation and learning that comes from back-to-back months in the classroom, and summer tutoring can reinforce that learning before it’s lost. According to the National Summer Learning Association, “All young people experience learning losses when they do not engage in educational activities during the summer,” and “research spanning 100 years shows that students typically score lower on standardized tests at the end of summer vacation than they do on the same tests at the beginning of the summer.” Students are able to retain more from the previous year of school, setting a good foundation for the next one.
- It maintains routines – One of school’s great advantages for children includes offering stability and routine and sometimes in the summer, that structure is lost. Summer tutoring can help restore stability by giving kids something to focus on, work to complete and goals for their holiday!
- Mind the gap – More often than not, the extra attention and training of summer tutoring can be just the support a student needs to understand parts of schoolwork where he or she has been getting stuck. Before having to jump into a new school year and new challenges, the student can catch up and get on track to be prepared to keep moving forward, filling in the gaps they may have accumulated over the previous school year. It also helps maintain momentum for other skills or subject areas that a student has already been excelling in
- Summer tutoring can be “outside of the box” – Summer tutoring doesn’t have to be the same as the rest of the year. In the summer, I like to try and get my students outside. Why not try some long division with side walk chalk? Or make a math scavenger hunt around the house? Putting an educational spin on games and outdoor fun takes the pressure off students and most of the time they don’t even realize that they are learning!
While you don’t need to book a tutor immediately after school finishes, some time with a qualified teacher/tutor may help ease some of the stresses of the upcoming academic year. According to research from Rand, “Rigorous studies of voluntary summer programs, mandatory summer programs and programs that encourage students to read at home in the summer have all found positive effects on student achievement.”
Looking for a qualified tutor for your son or daughter this summer? Beyond the Classroom can help! Our tutors are OCT qualified with experience in many different subject areas and they provide customized, one-to-one learning for your child. To find out more about hiring a summer tutor with Beyond the Classroom click here.
