Who is Teaching and Tutoring Your Child ?

When a child is struggling at school, it is natural for parents to reach out for help. So often, parents feel ill equipped to help their children with educational concerns, for a variety of reasons. Tutoring can be helpful in developing academic skills, reinforcing concepts and building self esteem through successes. But how do you choose a tutor or learning center? Tutoring centers vary in many ways, including location, size, cost, and quality. When looking for a tutor, there are a few things to keep in mind:

Is the tutor a certified teacher or highly qualified in his/ her field?

When parents inquire about tutoring services, the first point of contact is the center director or owner. Individuals who own and/or run tutoring centers may be well qualified educators. But those individuals may or may not actually work with your child. Often, to maximize profits, tutoring centers (especially chains) employ under educated, uncertified individuals to do the actual tutoring work. Sometimes these individuals are college students, or may even be college graduates, but not teachers. Sometimes, the tutor may hold only a high school diploma or some college credits. Tutoring centers often provide these individuals with in house tutoring and in-house “certificates”. These centers may then advertise these tutors as “highly qualified” or “certified,” but do not mention what kinds of certificates the tutors hold. Parents should feel free to ask center administrators about the qualifications and educational background of the tutor assigned to your child. Centers that employ certified, highly qualified instructors will be happy to show you the tutor’s N.J. State Certification. New Jersey State certified teachers are college graduates who have passed state and or national teaching exams, completed student teaching requirements, taught provisionally for one year under experienced educators and have been evaluated by supervisors.

What is the tutor’s educational background?

If your child’s tutor is not a N.J. State Certified teacher, he or she may still be highly qualified.What makes an instructor highly qualified? There maybe several options. Elementary certified teachers are highly qualified across multiple subject areas and grade levels through 6th or 8th grade. Such teachers have completed a rigorous course of study in child development, instructional theories, educational methodologies, and educational research
and have explicit training in teaching reading, math, writing, science, social studies and other
ancillary skills. Some tutors may be experts in the subject area for which they are tutoring.
For example, when tutoring a student who struggles with Mathematics, a tutor with an
undergraduate or graduate degree in math may be the appropriate person.
However, parents are advised to use caution when choosing a tutor who is not
teacher-certified. Some tutors, while experts in a certain subject, may not
be experts at teaching and explaining.

Because teaching is so important, the Learning Lab uses certified
teachers as tutors