Tutor

We were looking for math remediation for our dd, and as our older non-ld daughter was attending Sylvan for math help and doing well, we thought we’d give it a shot. It was very unsuccessful — even the Sylvan staff were willing to concede defeat. Their programs are good for the traditional student who just needs a little extra one-on-one, or for a child who missed concepts (our non-LD daughter had her math system changed mid-year, and large gaps were created as a result). We have found or best tutors through private local schools and through our educational psychologist. What type of resources are available in your area for guidance?

Take a look at the International Dyslexia Asso. site www.interdys.org and contact someone from your state branch to ask for names of qualified tutors. Also, you can check for Phono-Graphix tutors on the site www.readamerica.net. Please don’t waste your time and money at Sylvan. It is not for LD kids.

Janis

I think the other link is iser.com.
I also think Sylvan is pricey. They charge an arm and a leg for their “tests” that may or may not be standardized to anything. I also will evaluate my students but I’m not charging any more for that than a standard lesson.
I asked them questions about certain research based reading programs and they had no clue. You *might* find a tutor there that did but it would be a crap shot at best.

—des

One summer I found my son a tutor by asking teachers (that he liked) if they’d be interested in being hired to tutor him. He had just finished 6th grade at the middle school, and I hired the resource teacher at the elementary school he had attended. You may find a few teachers interested in making some extra money that could help. The other place to check is an education department or English department at a local university. I’d call the department chair and ask for recommendations for college students that could tutor. The other thing to try is to call your local high school to see if a principal or counseler could recommend a senior that might work well with your son on specific subjects he has problems with. I never tried a commercial learning center, as my son’s resource teacher (whom I trusted) didn’t recommend them for what my son needed (which was intensive reading and writing help).

Good luck,

Kay

If I were going to spend the money for a center based tutoring approach I would look into Lindamood Bell. We had a very positive experience there (for reading) and their approach is appropriate for LD kids. Every child I met there was LD, some in pretty obvious ways. The tutors were amazing with these kids.

We thought we were fortunate to have my childs teacher offer to tutor this summer. Child is a C student and the goal was to give him a leg up for this fall. We paid the teacher appropriately for the tutoring, 3 months of it.

What we did NOT expect is that the teacher we were paying for private tutoring would take notes about my child & pass them on to the principal of our school.

We learned the teacher has a serious discretion problem and as a result we are no longer comfortable dealing with this teacher as a human being. If you plan on using one of your child’s current teachers be aware this can happen to you. :(

Sylvan was useless and so was the tutor from the school who did the same whole language program that wasn’t working for my child IN school.

I bought the book reading reflex and taught him myself. I would recommend that you find a tutor trained in lindamood bell or phonographix or do it yourself with the book reading reflex. It really wasn’t that difficult.
There are also lindamood bell clinics.

You could also try a cognitive enhancement program like PACE or audiblox if the problems are affecting more than just reading.