Teaching Aides
When Johnny comes home with a bad report card it is an easy thing to remedy if the boy’s intellectual diet has been video games and bouncing a soccer ball off his head.
You just take away all the fun stuff and have him focus on homework and studying for tests until he realizes success in school has its own thrills.
But if the poor kid has been doing his homework and essential studying and his grades are down maybe it is time to get Johnny some extra help.
For a fee, there is plenty of assistance out there. Tutoring centers are popping up in every town. We checked out a few of them.
You’ll find most are open during after-school hours. Score in Thousand Oaks offers flexible drop-in hours from 2 to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 2 to 6 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. The tutoring at Score is done using computers, individual lessons and positive reinforcement, center director Rob Richards said. Richards, who grew up in Thousand Oaks as the son of a math teacher at Thousand Oaks High School and is a graduate of UC San Diego, wished there had been something like Score around when he was a kid.
The first month of two one-hour visits per week costs $109 with no long-term commitment. During that time each child is evaluated to find out what his or her needs are so that a personal curriculum can be assigned.
Customers include children with learning disabilities, kids who are at grade level and those who are performing well but need to be challenged. Ages range from 4 to 14.
If after the first month parents decide Score is right for their child they can continue the tutoring at $129 a month or sign a one-year contract with the reduced $109 monthly fee. There will be a four-month summer session with three one-hour-a-week sessions for $719. There is also a one-time family registration fee of $100 when a child begins classes.
Score focuses on reading, math and spelling and has locations in Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village and one opening up before summer in Simi Valley.
Another tutoring option is the Kumon Math and Reading program with locations in Westlake Village and Newbury Park. The more than 40-year-old method that originated in Japan encourages students to learn reading and math the old-fashioned way. “We don’t use calculators or computers,” said operator Cesar Gomez. “We do it the traditional way with a brain and a pencil.”
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His wife, Akiko Koide Gomez, is the instructor at the Kumon centers. The one in Westlake Village is open from 2 to 7 p.m. Monday and Thursday and from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Saturday. In Thousand Oaks sessions run from 3 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and Friday and from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday.
Students are assessed to determine the best starting point for them. They are expected to come to at least one hourlong session per subject each week at a cost of about $75 per subject. Homework is required so students can master what they have learned, Gomez explained.
At Sylvan Learning Center in Ventura, Twinkle Werber, a former teacher, tutors in grammar, study skills, writing and math after administering a diagnostic test to determine “skill gaps,” she said.
The assessment costs $150. Two hours a week is the amount of tutoring most often recommended, Werber said. There are no contracts and tutoring sessions cost $45 an hour unless parents take advantage of a discounted pay-in-advance plan.
After 12 hours a meeting takes place to reset goals and after 36 hours a child is reexamined to make sure there has been growth, she said. “I know what it’s like to be a classroom teacher when you know there are four or five kids struggling and it’s hard to find the time to help everybody,” Werber said.
Parents should look for a service with well-educated tutors who use an individualized program, she said.
“If they don’t understand fractions, we teach them fractions. But if they don’t understand fractions because they need to learn other math skills we teach them the basics first,” she said.
Sometimes, there is a teenager down the street who is a good student looking for some extra money who would commit to a few hours a week boosting your child’s academic skills. Another good tip before you pay out cash for tutoring is to first check with the child’s school. Many districts and individual schools provide informal before-and-after school tutoring programs for free, explained Pat Chandler, Ventura Unified School District assistant superintendent.
Just because you haven’t heard about this doesn’t mean your child’s school does not provide it. Many schools will also provide a list of teachers who moonlight as tutors.
Be prepared for tutoring to initially be a tough sell to your kids. Not surprisingly, many would rather hurry home and shoot a few hoops or get that soccer ball bouncing than work on fractions and spelling after school. Go figure.
Nancy Needham writes a weekly consumer column and can be reached at nancy.needham@reporters.net.
