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One-on-one Academic Tutoring

K-8 tutoring starts with a free standards-based diagnostic test, followed by a personalized assessment and tutoring plan.  Students then meet regularly with their tutors to improve their academic skills, fill in academic skill gaps, and improve their grades and test scores.  While some students work with their tutors primarily on school homework, other students work on material from previous grades, and still other students work ahead of their class.  High school tutoring is subject specific and aligned with students' high school curriculum and homework.

Students come for tutoring for a variety of reasons.  Many need to catch up with their grade-mates and fill in academic skill gaps.  Others need support with current school-year material.  Still other students want more challenge than they receive in the classroom.  EdBoost's one-on-one tutoring program is specifically designed to fit each of these needs.  By testing students before they begin tutoring, we pinpoint exactly what type of tutoring they need and make a recommendation about the ideal tutoring frequency and academic plan.  Because the tutoring is one-on-one, students can make quick progress.  There are no other students to cause distraction and our students have their tutors' undivided attention.  Even students who struggle to pay attention often find it's much easier when they have a tutor who is dedicated to teaching specifically to them.

Skill-Gap Tutoring:  Students fall behind in school for a variety of reasons.  Some students have a bad year (e.g., distractions at home, a bad fit with the teacher, friend problems) and miss content from that grade.  Other students are not developmentally ready for a particular skill when its taught.  Still other students struggle to learn in a group setting, either because they get easily distracted or because they need to learn at a difference pace than their classmates.  One-on-one tutoring addresses all of these problems.  Our diagnostic tests pinpoint the specific skills that students needs to improve and our tutoring plans target those skills specifically.  We start with the most basic skills that students need to improve and work to the more difficult skills. Tutors move at whatever pace works best for the student, encouraging the student to ask questions, explain processes back, and demonstrate mastery during tutoring and in tutoring homework. 

Grade-Level Tutoring: Some students need additional support and instruction to fully master the material that they learn in school. These students bring schoolwork and homework to tutoring and work through this material with their tutors.  Tutors try to focus on the material that students struggle with the most (and push students to do the work that they can do on their own, on their own).  Tutors not only provide support on specific homework assignments, but they expand on that material (e.g., teaching related skills that the student needs, teaching slightly different or more advanced versions of the skills, or applying the skills/concepts to real life to help make them more concrete and interesting to the student).  Tutors also help students improve their study skills and prepare for tests and quizzes.  At EdBoost, we focus on truly learning the material, not just completing the assignments.  So, for instance, if a student has science homework, the tutor and student would read and discuss the chapter before answering the questions together.  In that case, the tutor would strive to help the student understand the material well-enough so that the questions at the end of the chapter would be quite easy to answer (ideally without looking back in the chapter too often),

Enrichment Tutoring: Some students don't need help with homework and are caught up on grade-level skills, but they want to improve in an area of relative weakness or particular interest.  We often provide enrichment tutoring for subjects that are not being well covered by the student's class (this can be anything from grammar, to creative writing, to advanced math).  When students know that they will want to have "above grade level" skills in the future (for instance, when students know that they will be taking the ISEE exam -- which tests several years above grade level), weekly enrichment tutoring can really help students gain extra, advanced skills in a well-paced, stress-free, and fun way.

Occasional Tutoring: Still other students, typically high school students, come to EdBoost when they need a little extra help.  Students come for a few sessions before mid-terms or finals, when they are working on a challenging project, or when they hit a difficult concept in a subject (e.g., matrices in algebra or stoichiometry in chemistry).  Occasional tutoring is a great way to give students the support they need to maintain strong grades, even during challenging periods.

Tutor training is provided by EdBoost’s Executive Director, Tiffani Chin, who is also the co-author of Tutoring Matters, a how-to book on tutoring that is routinely assigned in service-learning classes and tutoring programs nationwide.