While better grades and improved academic performance are often an immediate benefit of private tutoring, it also offers positive changes beyond a GPA boost.
A semester of tutoring in high school-level math builds a student’s confidence, teaching them they can do this and are capable of almost anything. And it prepares your high school student to excel as a college student.
But paying for a tutor can be expensive. While you’re paying for a tutor’s experience, you also have to consider how much time it costs. Private tutoring can cut into a student’s downtime, even when it’s online tutoring.
As a parent considering a private tutor, you want to ensure it’s a good investment. While you won’t know the value of return on investment until you try it, here’s what to consider before paying for private tutoring, how to tell if it’s paying off, and some lower-cost alternatives if a private tutor is out of reach.
Benefits of Private Tutoring
Private tutoring can be a worthwhile expense that pays off over time. Some of the benefits of hiring a private tutor include:
- Personalized learning. A private tutor can tailor the lessons to fit your student’s individual learning style, ensuring they master the material quickly.
- One-on-one attention. Most private tutoring is one-on-one, something many students appreciate. The pressure of struggling in front of peers is gone, allowing your student to work through the material at a comfortable pace.
- Immediate feedback. Working with a private tutor usually means your student can get immediate feedback. For example, a foreign language tutor might have a conversation with your student and can immediately correct their grammar and hear what it’s supposed to sound like.
- Flexible scheduling. Unlike large tutoring companies with rigid schedules, private tutoring is flexible. Instead of rearranging your life to free up specific blocks of time, you can schedule private tutoring sessions after school, on the weekends, or whenever your student has time.
What to Consider Before Paying for a Private Tutor
Parents often make their children do things they don’t want to, so why not private tutoring? Given the expense, you may want to consider what your child wants and how willing they are to give private tutoring a shot.
When Your Child Doesn’t Want a Private Tutor
When they experience multiple challenges with a subject, they tend to develop negative feelings about it, which can be hard to overcome. They may blame the subject, calling it stupid or boring, which gives them the cover to disconnect and disengage from it. They often lose confidence in their abilities and themselves, adopting the narrative that they simply can’t succeed.
Before a private tutor can address academic performance, they need to turn these negative feelings around. But students who resent being forced into tutoring are far more likely to sink into negativity, and it’s unlikely you’ll see improvement. Even though the benefits are clear, paying for a private tutor may not be worth it.
When Your Child Wants a Private Tutor
Students who want private tutoring are almost guaranteed to improve once they start the session. When they connect with their tutor, negative feelings evaporate, opening the door to change and improvement.
When Your Student Is on the Fence
Many students don’t have a strong opinion on private tutoring. They may want a tutor but feel self-conscious about admitting they’re having trouble and asking for help. Mixed feelings are OK as long as the student commits to trying private tutoring. Once the tutor and student establish some trust and a rapport, the doubt tends to fade, and the student sees improvement.
How to Measure if Private Tutoring is Paying Off
If you’ve decided private tutoring is the way to go, you want to ensure it’s paying off. While improving grades is easy to see, there are other ways to measure if you’re getting your money’s worth.
Set Proper Goals
Private tutoring has the most success when your student is on the same page as you. Without their buy-in, it’s unlikely you’ll achieve your goals or theirs.
A professional tutor does more than teach class content and help your student with test-taking strategies, time management, or executive function. These critical skills help your child succeed academically, but they often aren’t taught in school. Many tutors can help your student strengthen these areas in addition to their academic skills.
So, consider what you want your child to get from private tutoring. In addition to improving academic performance, you may want them to:
- Build their confidence
- Improve their organization and time management skills
- Fill in knowledge gaps so they’re prepared for more advanced coursework
The goals can be specific and measurable or more general, but having goals you and your child agree on helps the tutor plan sessions.
Be Patient
Ask yourself and your student how quickly you expect to see improvement. Then, ask yourself how patient you’ll be if things move more slowly. It can help to give yourself more time than you think you’ll need to see measurable change. Academic success often happens with nonlinear progress, and the pressure to improve quickly can backfire, creating stress and overwhelming your child, which can cause them to disengage.
If money is a concern and you’re hoping things will move quickly to keep costs down, you may not get the results you want.
Alternatives to Private Tutoring
When you see your child struggling with school, private tutoring may be the first thing you think of. But tutoring works best when combined with other resources. Depending on how your child feels about a private tutor and other resources at your disposal, you may be able to skip paying for private tutoring.
Start With Class
Start with in-class support and ask your student if they’ve:
- Asked questions in class and engaged with the material
- Talked to other students who’ve mastered the material and are willing to do some peer tutoring with them
- Attended the teacher’s office hours to drop in and ask questions about their teaching methods and the material
- Scheduled an appointment with the teacher to review the material
If your child has done these and nothing’s helped, you may need to explore additional resources.
What Does the School Offer?
If in-class resources aren’t enough, there may be options at the school or district level.
Many schools have peer tutoring programs that let students seek help from teacher-supervised students. Maybe your child needs to take advantage of a study hall option to have more time during the day to complete homework or prepare for tests.
The school may have counselors or other staff that can help your student master academic skills and study habits, or you may want to consider an IEP to get additional support in place.
More Is Often Better
Ultimately, a multi-pronged approach is best. Private tutoring alone is never as good as tutoring in conjunction with other resources. And if a student relies too much on a private tutor for assistance, they may lose confidence in their ability to do the work themselves, which is never the desired outcome.
Combining private tutoring with multiple resources helps a student feel confident, capable, and well-supported throughout their academic career.
Is It Worth It to Pay for a Private Tutor?
Private tutoring is not a silver bullet, but it can be an incredibly valuable resource when it is approached with care and consideration.
Emergent Education’s Portland and Seattle tutors can help your child achieve their learning goals – whatever they are. Our team takes a growth-mindset approach to tutoring, adapting sessions to your child’s learning style and letting them work at their own pace to build their confidence and help them learn they can do this!
Contact Emergent Education today, and we’ll pair your student with the right tutor for their needs.
