What Are the Benefits of In-Home Academic Support for Busy Families?

Traditional tutoring models involve parents and students trekking to tutoring centers, waiting in lobbies to be called back to tutoring rooms, and then waiting for their parents to pick them back home after the tutoring session. This can all be removed from learning and can even interfere with a student's ability to reach his or her academic potential. Ideally, learning takes place in the most familiar environment for a student, which is their home.

The convenience factor goes beyond saved time

The typical parent has a number of misconceptions as to what constitutes academic support. The fact that most tutors drive to a student's home, rather than the other way around, is often enough to save two hours of study time per day, not to mention hours waiting in a tutoring center lobby for a tutor to complete other sessions. The time a student spends with a tutor, plus the time it takes for a tutor to drive to a student's home, is just not the same as "spending time with your children" and "helping them with their studies."

When tutoring takes place in the student's home, the tutor arrives at the scheduled time and leaves at the end of the scheduled time. This means there is no time spent dealing with car seats, traveling in traffic, or even bringing your younger children along. Families with many children or single parents benefit the most from in-home tutoring. All of the extra time saved can be spent by your student doing homework, relaxing, or other activities that will be good for them. So the extra time that parents have by not having to physically transport their kids to a tutor could be better utilized elsewhere: to help their child with more homework, to go for a run or gym, to watch TV with the rest of the family, etc.

Creating distraction-free learning environments

When a child receives extra academic help at a tutoring center, there are often many distractions. Not only are there other children at the center studying, there are also many adults conversing in the lobby. It can be difficult for any child to focus and study well in a place with so many distractions. In a tutoring center, a child does not have control over the learning environment. They may not feel comfortable asking a question or telling the tutor that they do not understand a concept. Many children are not able to learn as well in a tutoring center than they would in the home environment.

Students work best in their own environment. At home, tutors can work with students in their own space and observe their natural work style. Tutors can set up the learning space to best suit the student's learning style. The tutor can also observe how the student sets up for school work and set up the learning space to best facilitate the student's learning style. Also, the tutor can establish boundaries of the work space to keep distractions to a minimum so that the student can stay focused on learning.

In order to have a successful in-home tutoring session, the tutor and student will need to establish some boundaries. This can mean turning the TV off, having your siblings stay out of the room, and trying to keep the household noise to a minimum. If a student is able to learn in their home environment, then they will be able to focus better and achieve more in their in-home tutoring sessions.

Flexibility that adapts to real life

Most tutoring is scheduled in advance and is not able to be rescheduled for a few days later for a family emergency. In fact, most tutoring centers do not even allow you to speak with a tutor until you have scheduled an appointment for tutoring. And then if you have to reschedule for another day or time, you have to go back through the entire scheduling process. This can be a total nightmare for working parents who have to get to the tutoring center during business hours.

There are many advantages of tutoring in your home versus traveling to a tutoring center with your child for two hours of tutoring per session, two or more times per week. For example, with home tutoring your child's tutor can come to your home as often as you want, as late in the evening as you want, on any day of the week and at any time of day. For example, your child's tutor could come to your home for daily tutoring sessions for two or three months and then reduce the frequency to two times per week for several months to prepare for final exams. With home tutoring, evening hours and on weekends are no problem as well as during the day. A big advantage to home tutoring is that with children of different ages that need tutoring, traveling to different tutoring centers with the different aged children is no longer necessary. A home tutor in Union City can provide tutoring to your child in your home at any time of day or night, any day of the week, as often as you like. For example, evening tutoring sessions could be set up for your child as needed.

Personalized attention without institutional constraints

A tutoring center is typically a for-profit business. It can have high overhead costs and in order to service many students, the center may use a system or a curriculum to tutor the students. Each tutor may only have a short amount of time to get to know the student's learning style in order to develop the best study materials for that student.

A tutor working in homes with families will work as part of your team. He or she will get to know your student and your family and work with you to develop a learning plan for your student that is just right for him or her. The tutor will be able to see how your student organizes to do his or her homework and he or she can use that information to organize the tutoring sessions to best meet your student's needs. In this way, your student will have the advantage of a tutor who can work with your student in the way that best allows your student to learn.

Tutors that work in students' homes get to know not only the student but the rest of the family too. Because of this, the tutor gains valuable insight into the student's daily routine including how the student does their homework and the various activities they are involved in. This allows the tutor to create more effective individualized learning in sessions with the student as well as to make effective suggestions to the family for improving the student's learning environment.

Cost considerations demand careful analysis

In-home tutoring typically costs more per hour than tutoring in a center, especially when given on a one on one basis, but is usually worth it. The tutoring is more effective leading to more learning in less time. In addition, when calculating the cost of in-home tutoring, must factor in the value of the child's and parents' time. This time is better spent than to have them traveling to a tutoring center. When one does the math, in-home tutoring is cost-effective for many families. In addition, in-home tutoring leads to some students making faster progress, thus they do not need as much tutoring in the end. There is also the value of the money not spent on transportation, missed sessions due to other commitments, and the stress of having to find and go to another location for yet more tutoring.

Yes, in many cases one-on-one tutoring may cost more per hour than tutoring in a group setting at a tutoring center. And, indeed, there are many situations in which the money that families save in such cases can far offset any additional cost of one-on-one tutoring in terms of better results from their child's tutoring. First, as noted, the child could do so well in the one-on-one tutoring that less hours of tutoring will be required overall. Secondly, in such situations, families would be saving all the money that would otherwise be spent for transporting their child to a tutoring center after school and for the child's being placed in stressful after school situations that could, in turn, negatively impact their child's learning in after school tutoring.

Many argue that the high price per hour of in-home tutoring is usually justified by the student's rapid progress in a short amount of time. Also, in-home tutoring costs include the opportunity cost of parents' time, which is better spent elsewhere than driving around to different locations. And, there is also the transportation costs that can be saved. As well, in-home tutoring is usually more effective than traditional tutoring so the costs are worth it.

Implementation requires strategy

Strategies for preparing your home for in-home tutoring: with your children in-home tutoring and your students learn best in your home's certain spaces, the preparation of your home is key. Students also have their own way of working out with learning materials. When you learn the ways in which your children learn best and set up your home in this fashion, you can reap the rewards of your child's in-home tutoring.

The family's best use of in-home tutoring is to develop a working relationship with the tutor as a learning partner for their child. The family and tutor will work together as a team and the family will give the tutor feedback on progress and the tutor will give the family feedback on what is working and what is not. The family and tutor will together develop an approach to the child's learning and make changes to that approach as necessary over time.

The tutoring system that we offer at Academic Guidance is specifically designed for the busy family. This family is busy with their lives and need some sort of academic support that will complement their lives and allow for their children to achieve academic success. To that end, it is imperative that the family finds the right tutor(s) to work with in order to meet their children's needs.