Tutoring K-12 | Red Flags

How do you determine if your child needs tutoring? If they truly warrant outside help? “Should I or shouldn’t I worry?” This question has kept many a parent awake at night. The red flags listed below are designed to assist you in making decisions regarding what is right for your child’s future.

Reading Comprehension

One of the most compelling findings from recent reading research is that children who get off to a poor start in reading rarely catch up (Torgesen, 1998). The poor first-grade reader almost invariably continues to be a poor reader (Francis, Shaywitz, Stuebing, Shaywitz, & Fletcher, 1996; Torgesen & Burgess, 1988). The consequences of a slow start in reading become monumental as they grow over time. The best solution to the problem of reading failure is to allocate resources for early identification and prevention.

Kindergarten is the grade during which to begin intervention. Children who are behind at the end of first grade have only a one-in-five to one-in-eight chance of being on grade level (Moats, 1999).

Reading Comprehension Red Flags

Student sees the first letter of a word and says another word with a similar composition.
Example: please for polite.
Cannot read a non-memorized word.
Must have pictures to assist in reading of text. (Beginning readers)
Knows a word on one page, but not on the next.
Inserts, omits, reverses, and transposes sounds in words while reading and spelling.
Consistently loses place on page of text.
No word attack skills (decoding).
Example:
boat = b/b/ oa/o/ t/t/
bright = br/Br/ igh/I/ t/t/
Unable to break apart words into syllable types.
Example:
closed syllables: rabbit = rab bit
open/closed syllables: silent = si lent
r-controlled/vowel digraph syllables: harpoon = har poon
Reads words beautifully, but has no comprehension of text at end of paragraph and/or page.
Reading is slow and labored, choppy cadence (not smooth) and often will ignore punctuation.
Weak vocabulary – does not know how to derive meaning from word parts.
Example: take off the prefix, take off the suffix, look at the root – Greek or Latin = combine all parts together to get the meaning of the word.

Writing Red Flags

Handwriting is illegible (trouble with spacing, uneven slant, overly large/small/cramped handwriting).
Speaks more easily about a topic than writes about it.
Does not understand the four main important parts of speech (nouns, verbs, modifiers, prepositions).
Major misspellings, often written phonetically at best, therefore, student writes short, flat sentences.
Example: The nurse was nice to me. instead of The nurse was gentle, as her hands delicately bandaged the deep gash on my forehead.
Inadequate understanding of punctuation, grammar, and syntax.
Poor sentence structure (run-ons, fragments, choppy) and an inadequate understanding of the paragraph structure.
Awkward planning, organizing thoughts, getting started. Writes outside of the intended subject area; begins to “free associate” and loses the main idea of the paper.
Difficulty taking notes and summarizing what has been read or heard.
Does not understand writing as an extension of the thought process.

Math

Mathematics is a systematic scientific form of language. Mathematical language is acquired as the student moves through a logical sequence of steps, proceeding from part to whole. If at any time the student cannot integrate one step into the next, it is truly impossible to move on. This is where students often become stuck. They cannot move forward because the concept previously taught has not been fully integrated. This creates what schools commonly refer to as ‘gap’ areas in the learning continuum. Rest assured these ‘gaps’ can be filled in, but a foundation must be secured.

Math Red Flags

Trouble remembering which way to work a math problem.
Transferring numbers from board to paper and/or text to paper.
Omitting steps in a sequence to solve a problem.
Student learns to solve mathematical problems, but later (that day, next day) appears to have forgotten and does not know how to begin.
Reversing the order of steps to solve a problem.
Unable to memorize non-meaningful facts (those not personally interesting or relevant).
Example: multiplication tables
Time concepts.
Example: must understand fractions before time concepts – be home at quarter to five.

Organization/Study Skills

Keeping oneself organized is half the battle of a good grade; the other half is the student’s own cognitive base knowledge. When you see your child drowning in a sea of unfinished papers in the middle school/high school years and A’s become B’s and C’s, you know it’s time to get help with organization. The transition years (5th grade/8th grade) are the perfect years to begin to create a template that will fit the unique learning style of the student.

Organization/Study Skills Red Flags

Crams all work into book bag and later cannot find necessary homework.
Desks at school and home look like the inside of the book bag.
Constantly forgets to bring home homework, books, or materials for a project.
Waits until the eleventh hour to do an assignment.
Cannot seem to get homework started, then moves haphazardly from one subject to the next never really completing anything.
Homework is taking hours to complete, leaving both parent and child frustrated.
Feels validated in their reasoning for why homework could not get turned in on time. Unable to accept responsibility for self (bad teacher, therefore, don’t care if I get a bad grade in his or her class).