If you are considering private tutoring for your child, these are the Pros and Cons you may wish to consider:
Pros:
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Private tutors can work at a child’s pace.
This is probably the number one consideration for seeking private tutoring. If you are a parent, you can surely recall the time you were at school and for some reason, you lacked the basis for complex areas like calculus and geometry and you always wished that someone would explain these areas to you from scratch. Tutors can do just that; unblock one area of learning to make way for further learning.
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Private tutors can give your child much-needed one-to-one attention.
Is your child very visual, relying on maps, picture and visual stimuli to learn? Does your child prefer to learn by jumping directly into an activity rather than spending a long time reading text information? Children, like adults, have different learning styles and a personal tutor is able to cater classes to their preferences in the way that an educator teaching 20-odd kids at once is simply unable to. Private tutoring can save your child from falling through the cracks of an education system which can often be all too generic.
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Confidence and self-esteem.
These are extremely important factors to learning any subject. The more confident a child feels with their schoolwork the more creative their thought processes become which means they will be able to grasp complicated concepts much more easily.
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Private tutors can work on specific obstacles to learning:
Dyslexia, dyspraxia, sight impairment or hearing loss can get in the way of a child learning and communicating. A specialized, qualified tutor with experience and true vocation can help your child advance in leaps and bounds.
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A good private tutor will not only teach your child core subjects; they will also teach them vital study skills:
These include time management, handy tips like summarizing and focusing on titles while skim reading, and strategies like paying attention to what the teacher emphasizes in class, in order to predict the content of future tests.
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Freedom to Ask Questions:
As the classroom is so competitive, students do not feel comfortable to ask questions in front of their peers. They fear ridicule as well as under performing alongside their friends. Private tuition creates freedom to ask questions, big or small, as students feel they are in a safe environment. A private tutor will understand exactly what the student is trying to grasp and provide them the support they need, without feeling embarrassed or self conscious.
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A private tutor will help your child set goals and objectives for themselves:
Study is not just about improving one’s marks at school; it is also about achieving specific targets which can go beyond those determined by the official curriculum.
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A private tutor frees parents from the duties of conducting a child’s homework sessions themselves:
Especially if our children are entering their teens, some subject matter can be challenging even for parents: this includes areas like advanced maths and new technologies. Most parents feel like they don’t have enough time to be with their children, and would prefer not to spend the little time they do have with their teens on something as potentially conflict or tense as study.
Cons:
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Tutoring can be expensive:
Some families are on too tight a budget to afford private tutoring.
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Difficult to find a good private tutor:
Nowadays, top tutors normally doesn’t take one to one private tuition. Thus difficulty is high to find a good tutor that really meet your child’s need.
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Children need to learn to overcome their own difficulties:
Some critics argue that private tutoring is tantamount to serving up education to your child on a platter. They should learn, so say these critics, to succeed through their own efforts exclusively (a good tutor will not spoon-feed your child, of course, but rather, motivate and provide them with direction).
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Safety:
Some parents worry about how safe their kids are with adults they do not know. They should always ensure that they are dealing with an agency that properly screens its tutors, or a private tutor that can provide them with references.
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Lack of Credential, Experience and Commitment:
Most are Part-Time Tutors who may not have the credentials, ability or experience to teach effectively. Many of them are also unable to stay with the students as they progress through each level.