So you’ve narrowed down your list of prospective tutors. Maybe you’ve conducted the search online–though Yelp or through a search engine–and have come up with a short list of tutors with raving five-star reviews. Maybe a tutor has been referred to you by a school counselor, or a friend, or a fellow parent whose child has benefitted enormously from that person’s guidance. But tutoring relationships are as nuanced and complex as any other kind of relationship: just because your best friend gets along well with someone else doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have a fondness for that person, too. And a desire on the part of your child to be tutored is part of the equation, so the personalities of all involved have to click. The most valuable thing you can do is meet with a potential tutor (ideally with your child present), and ask him or her these nine questions–regardless of how highly they are rated on Yelp, or how highly recommended they are by your child’s classmates’ parents:
- What are your qualifications?
It may almost seem like a superfluous first question (if you are meeting with a tutor who runs his or her own tutoring business, isn’t he or she obviouslya “qualified” professional?), but what makes a candidate suitable is more than that candidate’s educational background. It should go without saying that if you are looking for a tutor to work with your child on chemistry, he or she should at least have a college degree in chemistry. But it’s also important to look for someone who has worked with students comparable to your child’s age, learning style, and level of competence. That is, it is important not only that the tutor knows the subjectwell, but also that he or she has mastered approachesto the subject that your child is likely to respond well to.
As a follow-up question, you may consider asking how long your candidate has been tutoring for. While the ratio of years-of-experience-to-competence is by no means fixed, it is certainly the case that the longerone has been tutoring, the more kindsof students–and types of needs and learning styles–he or she has encountered. You add new tools to your toolbox in every new relationship with every new student; and a tutor with more years under his or her belt is likely to have a wider range of approaches and pedagogical solutions than a tutor who is just beginning.
- Are you the person doing all the tutoring? (Are there any “associates”?)
There is something to be said for having your child meet with the same tutor every time they come in (or are met somewhere) for a session. As is the case with any relationship, trust and ease are built over time, and these things are crucial to your child’s comfort–and, by extension, his or her ability to engage in sessions. Meeting with the same tutor each time also ensures an easeful transition into each new session, as the tutor knows precisely where the conversation paused, recalls where your child may have been perplexed in the last lesson, and ideally has been considering ways of approaching the topic anew in the next meeting. There is nothing to catch up on, and no filling-in-the-gaps in the narrative.
This consistency is particularly important if your child takes a long time to warm up to new people in his or her life. It is also important if you plan on having a tutor in your child’s life for a longer stretch than for, say, standardized test prep. In this case, it is best to seek out a dedicated professional tutor rather than someone who is between jobs. No one wants the experience of having their child finally establish a healthy and comfortable relationship with their tutor, only to have that tutor have to discontinue meetings because he or she finally found a job “in their field.”
- What is your teaching philosophy?
Of course the answer to this question will be likely to vary depending on the kind of help you are looking for (homework help, organization and time management skills, maintenance due a change in schools and your child’s subsequent overwhelm, remediation to get your child up to grade level, test prep, etc). But a tutor who has been deeply thinking about pedagogy for as long as he or she has been tutoring (and these are the best kinds of tutors) will have a ready answer for you on this question. It is important that the tutor’s answer align with your child’s learning style: if your child is very independent and the tutor insists on the importance of constant check-ins and a very firm hand, for instance, you may not have found your match.
Other questions that fall under this category include: What methods do you use to help your students with [time management, essay-writing: fill in your child’s need here]? How do you assess your students’ strengths and weaknesses? How do you motivate your students? How will you measure my child’s progress? How will you determine when my child can start working independently of you?
- What is your track record?
In addition to asking for references, you have the right to request evidence of the tutor’s past successes with his or her students: higher test results, improved classroom grades, higher quality written work, more consistent homework completion, and so on. Any good tutor should quickly be able to provide these kinds of authentication, as well as testimonials from previous clients (many of them will already have testimonials posted on their websites or will have been reviewed on crowd-sourced review sites such as Yelp). If you are meeting with a tutor who has notbeen referred to you by a friend or fellow parent–or if you simply trust a real-time referral to a bunch of online reviews–you may ask the tutor if there is someone you can contact as a reference.
- What is the range of topics you are comfortable teaching; and can you refer other tutors for other topics?
Every tutor has a specialty; some of them more than one. While some tutors are specialists in particular subjects or processes (math or essay writing, for instance), others have mastered practice and preparation for specific exams.
Be wary of any tutor who claims to be able to instruct too wide a range of subjects: if you are looking for help for your child in chemistry andhistory andeconomics andSAT prep, you’re likely to need a few different tutors: any tutor who claims to be skilled in all of these subjects is likely not being wholly truthful with you. But if a tutor has been in the business long enough, he or she has probably established a network of tutors to refer you to in the case your needs fall out of his or her range of expertise or experience.
- How often do you communicate with parents and teachers? In the case of academic tutoring, are you open to collaborating with my child’s teacher/s?
Tutors and classroom teachers should be working together toward a common goal. This doesn’t necessarily mean they mustbe in communication; but sometimes this direct contact ensures that the tutor knows what textbook is being used in the classroom, what is on the syllabus and what the teacher’s expectations for the students are, what worksheets are being distributed that might assist in the tutoring process, and so on. Even checking in once at the beginning of the school year to ensure that teacher and tutor objectives are aligned can make a world of difference.
Whether or not he or she is in direct contact with your child’s teachers, a professional tutor should absolutely be providing you regular feedback on session content, objectives that they and your child have come up with, progress (or lack thereof), and plans for forthcoming sessions. You arepaying for this service, after all; and this communication will also give you a sense of how you can reinforce, at home, what your child is learning during session.
- Where will the tutoring take place?
There may be a range of answers to this question. Some tutors have their own offices, and sessions strictly take place there; some choose public places to tutor, while others will be more than willing to come to your home. It is important to have a realistic sense of your own life, and your own schedule, before asking this question. You’ll likely have to factor transportation into your decision, as well as your–and your child’s–comfort with the location. If your child is easily distracted by noise levels, for instance, you may not want to choose a tutor who only meets students at the local café.
- What is your cancellation and rescheduling policy?
While most tutors are rather flexible, many will require 24- or 48-hour notice if you have to cancel. In fact, it’s probably fair to say that a good tutor will have a cancellation/ rescheduling policy of somekind: a good tutor knows what his or her time is worth–and the best tutors are generally very busy and may have waiting lists–so don’t pass on a tutor because he or she has a policy in place. But it is best to be realistic about how busy you are–and how often you tend to cancel and rearrange your own schedule–before you settle on a tutor with policies that might cost you.
- What is your pricing?
I’m including this as the final question, although unfortunately cost is often thedetermining factor in choosing a tutor. In my experience, however, the tutor’s answers to the earlier questions will be infinitely more important in making your decision than the answer to this final one. If the tutor has been able to provide outstanding–and consistent–proof of student improvement, for instance, it will likely be more worth your while to choose that tutor than to choose someone whose references are mediocre: you’ll only end up paying more in the end, either because you have to schedule more sessions to see the same progress, or because you end up jumping around to various tutors to fill in the gaps that a very good(but more expensive) tutor would not leave open. If the answers to the first eight questions indicate that the tutor would be a perfect fit, don’t rule them out because of their fees. Finally, don’t forget to ask about payment policies and forms of payment, to be sure that you’re all on the same page from the beginning.