All children benefit from the exclusive attention of a teacher. Most students make rapid progress when given the opportunity to enjoy one-to-one instruction. One-to-one tutoring allows our caring tutors to really get to know your child and his or her unique strengths and weaknesses. It allows for continuity of instruction. It prevents errors and skill gaps from slipping through the cracks. Working one-to-one with your child also lends itself to immediate feedback, which gives your child a chance to correct errors before they become patterns, as well as enjoy praise and encouragement. Perhaps best of all, one-to-one instruction enables us to identify areas where your child is strong (which often go undetected in a classroom environment) and to accelerate your child in those areas of giftedness. A one-to-one setting allows us to focus on your child’s individual needs and tailor instruction to suit his or her style and pace of learning.
At ABOVE-GRADE TUTORING, we believe that, to be effective, a tutoring course must begin with an accurate analysis of each student’s scholastic strengths and weaknesses. We must take the “guess factor” out of education and replace it with the “confidence factor.” Toward that goal, we offer our students a thorough skill analysis developed by education experts—one that has been used successfully by hundreds of schools across the country and over 4 million students worldwide. Compared with the evaluations offered by schools and other tutoring services, the evaluation we utilize is keyed to international standards for every grade level. This gives us the ability to accurately recognize areas where your student may have missed vital skillsets or needs specific attention. This also ensures that our customized curriculum meets the precise needs of your child, and your child masters the foundational skills they need for academic success. Our diagnostic evaluation process is carefully structured to give us a comprehensive view of how your daughter or son is performing in each of the subject areas they will be expected to master in school.
As icing on the cake, we offer this invaluable service at no charge to parents! We cover the cost fully for Chester County families. After all, this is our community, too!
• Unfortunately, grades don’t guarantee that students are learning the skills they need. There are many levels of learning that aren’t addressed in a classroom setting. Important skills are missing from many schools’ curricula for a variety of reasons, such as: time limitations, the pressures to perform on standardized testing, distractions in the classroom, or important skills—like critical thinking skills—simply being eliminated. Perhaps most influential of all is the question of whether the Common Core curricular standards yield a complete, quality education.
• Surprisingly, grades in school don’t necessarily indicate a student’s mastery of the subject. There are many factors that may influence the grade a teacher assigns, such as homework points, participation, or weighting/curving scores, to name a few.
• Grades don’t guarantee that a student will retain the skills they’ve learned. In a typical classroom, teachers teach the skills, test the skills, and then move on to the next unit of study. That approach doesn’t lend itself to long-term skill retention or the ability to apply knowledge learned to new and different situations. In fact, research indicates that students lose approximately 30% of their prior year’s learning over the summer months.
ABOVE-GRADE TUTORING’s tutoring methods emphasize brain-based methods for skill mastery with long-term retention. We integrate high-level critical thinking skills throughout every level of instruction. And we offer a challenging, comprehensive curriculum that has taken over 30 years to perfect and aligns with College Board standards. Best of all, we move at each student’s individual pace, and our students don’t feel pressured to perform at the pace of the rest of the class.
Why tutoring? Because every student is unique…their learning should be, too!
The number of tutoring sessions depends on the needs of each individual student. From the results of the diagnostic skill evaluation, we create an individualized educational program. Based on our years of experience, we will then recommend the number of sessions needed to address the areas where the student would benefit from our assistance.
There’s a lot that goes into screening and hiring our cream-of-the-crop tutors…we can’t possibly reveal it all in a short FAQ! Here’s brief peek into our process:
• First, we look for outstanding individuals who are academically proficient.
• Second, we look for tutors who are experts in their professional fields.
• Third, we look for individuals who are not only knowledgeable, but who are also able to teach their skills effectively. After all, the important thing is not necessarily how much we know, but rather, how much our students learn from us.
• Next, we screen carefully for tutors who are patient, encouraging, have a passion for teaching, and are dedicated to helping students succeed.
• Lastly, we look for those extra special individuals who display the highest ethical standards. We take the responsibility seriously of being role models and mentors for our students.
Not many applicants pass our rigorous hiring process. For those who do, we thoroughly train them in brain-based teaching methods for effective learning, skill mastery, and long-term retention—training that is rare to find in any school or educational setting.
Because we know how important it is for our tutors to impact students in potentially life-changing ways. And we take seriously the trust parents place in us.
• Professional educators
• School Principals or Assistant Principals
• Graduate or Undergraduate-level university students, who are education majors or experts in their fields of study
• Active workers, employed in the workforce in their areas of expertise, dedicated to bringing real-life relevance to students’ educations
• Retired professionals, bringing the wisdom that only years of experience can bring
One thing is for certain: ALL our tutors are passionate about the subjects they teach and the success of their students! In short, our tutors are among the finest that education has to offer!
