Finding an in-home tutoring for your child can be a daunting task, especially if you do not know where to look for the same. The problem with quality in-home tutoring is that there are very less tutors available who take private tuitions, especially if you have a kid at home. And those which are available for the same might ask for astronomical salaries because they take the job to be more like baby - sitting than teaching/tutoring the child. And as a matter of fact, small kids actually do not need much tutoring but more mentoring - that can be provided by the parents themselves.

First, ask your friends and colleagues if they have used a good home tutor. You will be surprised how many parents have used a private tutor these days. You just might get lucky. I say you would be getting lucky because tutoring is a very transient job - many of the best tutors are only doing it on their way to bigger and better things. So the tutor your friend used 2 years ago may be in medical school now.

Second, go online and look for a tutoring company in your area. There will be many options - at least half of them will be center-based tutoring. Look for keywords like “home tutor” or “in-home tutor” which will imply that the tutor will come to your home. Once you narrow it down to a handful of tutoring companies, then use the following steps:

Look at the website. Is it professional? Do they give an email and a phone number to contact them? Do they explain their policies, their philosophy, and the way their program works? Can you read about the owner of the company?

Does the company have testimonials or success stories listed on their site? If so, take a minute to read through them. Do they look like they were written by a real person? Are there any from parents or students in your town?

Call the company or send them a web inquiry. If you do this with several companies, you can measure the time it takes for a company to get back to you. Some of them have auto-responders that send you an automated message, this doesn’t count. You can tell an auto-responder because it is a general, canned email and it comes to you within seconds of sending your inquiry. You want to time how long it takes to get a live response from a real person. You would be surprised by how many companies don’t reply at all!

Ask about price, and consider the price vs. service offering. When you are dealing with a company, you are generally going to pay a little more for the service they offer. Most tutoring companies screen their tutors - interviews, references, background checks - and if the one you are talking to doesn’t, then I would hang up. When you go with a tutoring company over an individual, you are paying for their work in finding and screening the tutor. This costs money as the work is done by real people. So don’t expect to get a premium tutor for $20 per hour. The price range for private, in-home tutoring from a company ranges from $40 through $150 or more per hour. Most companies charge between $40 and $75 per hour, and many offer pre-paid discount packages. Remember that often you get what you pay for - a higher priced tutor will have more experience, better credentials and be more engaging, on average, than a cheaper tutor.

Does the company require an upfront fee or a long term contract? This is unnecessary, and unless there are other things you really like about a company, you should not pay an upfront fee or be forced into a long term contract.

What happens if you don’t like the tutor? Do they credit you the first session? Can you get a new tutor quickly?

How do the tutors communicate with you? Do they write session reports? Is it only verbal? Is there any followup from the administration of the company? You want to stay in the loop on the progress of the tutoring, so make sure they have a system in place.

How does their matching process work? How long does it take to get a tutor to come out to your house?

It is probably best to talk with no more than 3 companies. After 3 companies, you may start to get confused and end up spending too much time deciding between multiple options. And most of those options will most likely be comparable.

You definitely will want to involve your child in the process of selecting the tutor. After the first meeting, make sure you sit down with your child and get his or her feedback. The relationship between the tutor and the student is important to ensuring the success of the tutoring.

When a tutoring company fails to produce a tutor for the subjects you are looking for, add another tutoring company to your list.

Finally, trust your gut feel. Although there are tangible factors like degrees and years of experience, the most important may be how you and your child feel about the tutor. If the tutor makes you feel confident that he or she can do the job, then go with your gut.

At Lotus Tutors, they strongly believe every student has the capacity to excel and achieve their target grades given the right training and mentoring. That is precisely what they and their fantastic team of tutors thrive to do.

Tags: Child, Education, Home Tutor

This entry was posted on July 25, 2023 at 3:41 am and is filed under Private Tuition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.