How to find the right tutoring program for your child

Looking to help your kid with reading or math? Start with this guide.

Let’s be honest, it’s humbling when your child struggles. And heartbreaking at times. When she was five, our first daughter lived with dozens of books in her bed and was reading on a fourth grade level by the end of kindergarten. She read, she read a lot, and reading was a breeze for her. Our second didn’t follow suit. Despite books all around, despite plenty of shared reading and encouragement, reading was hard for her, she resisted it, and—for years—she insisted, “I’m not a reader like my sister.” Before turning a corner, she was 1.5 years below grade level. The questions and guilt were both dizzying: were we doing anything that was working, what were we not doing, was she always going to struggle, was there hope? And even crazy questions—that we as parents tend to ask ourselves in moments like these—like, will my then seven-year-old eventually be able to go to college and succeed there?

So, where do we as parents go with questions like these? The only reasonable place there is: Google. You’d think finding help for your kiddo would be a cinch: pull up a quick search and plenty of choices at your fingertips. But this is where the problem really begins, how do you even start to sift through all this info? Should your reading tutor be Orton-Gillingham certified or Wilson-trained? Mathnasium or Aloha Mind Math? What about brain training programs like CogMed, Learning Rx, Lumosity? And what are Interactive Metronome and Integrated Listening System not to mention all those private tutoring companies out there.

Okay, I’m overloaded already. So, let me shine some light on this process and give you the language and understanding to help you make an informed choice for your kiddo. In the end, I’ve narrowed it down to a handful of questions to ask. So, here goes.

Does the program directly teach skills?

There are two approaches to helping struggling students. The first is a direct approach. When students struggle with reading, writing, or math, we provide help in just that. This is the classic tutoring model in which tutors work with students to improve lagging skills. This is tutoring in reading, writing, math, or languages or SAT prep. You get the idea. To offer a metaphor: the direct approach is like if your kid wanted to be a better basketball player, you’d make sure they were playing a lot of basketball and practicing basketball skills.

The second is an indirect approach. These are programs like Learning Rx, Lumosity, CogMed, neurofeedback, Interactive Metronome, Integrated Listening System, and the list goes on and on. These programs all aim to improve attention and/or thinking skills. They hope is that, down the road, these will lead to gains in reading, writing, and/or math. To take the basketball metaphor further, indirect programs are like focusing on conditioning: running a lot, doing burpees, crunches, mountain climbers, you get the picture. This conditioning isn’t directly improving basketball skills but is setting the stage to be a stronger athlete and basketball player.

Indirect approaches are all over, and they frequently talk about brain plasticity and how our brain can grow. And they’re right. But, let’s face it, intense practice in anything can grow our brain. Overall, I’m wary of indirect approaches. They’re shiny, they’re new, they’ve got all the buzzwords, but ultimately the research is mixed. Years ago I offered the CogMed Working Memory Training Program, but—to be fair—results were unremarkable. Do I think an indirect approach can work for some students? Yes, but it usually works for fewer students and for students who have notably weak attention and/or cognitive skills in the first place. And this answers the question: would there be a time when I’d consider an indirect approach? Yes. If a student had profound attention struggles that impacted them across most subjects, and if money wasn’t a big issue, then I may give it a whirl. But, I’d certainly ask about their history of results. How do you measure gains? What percentage of students make notable gains? How long until we should start seeing a positive change? These are all appropriate questions. Too many times I have seen parents sign up for brain training, but their initial assessment was clear: the student didn’t have any weak cognitive skills to start with. So, they weren’t a great candidate, but they were still sold an intense program costing a lot of money. No, I don’t think indirect programs or brain-training is bogus, but I’m wary. Here is what I think is a balanced review from a PhD author who I appreciate.

In the end, and from my experience, indirect approaches are inefficient. They may lead to improvement, but if your child is struggling to read, get them an expert reading tutor ASAP. Last year I completed an evaluation for a student with a learning disability in math. He was participating in an intensive brain-training program 3-4 days/week. But, even after a year, he was still about two years below grade level. Now, if the family would have invested half the time and money in an expert math tutor, I’d be willing to bet that the student would be on grade level.

From my twenty or so years in education, the most effective approach is the first—helping students succeed by directly teaching them the reading, writing, and math skills they need. And when they taste success, their confidence will rise, they will embrace learning more and more, and this will pave the way to long-lasting growth. But, it’s not just any tutoring done by anyone. More on this now.

Who’s doing the tutoring?

This matters—a lot. Let’s be honest, you want a tutor who’s been around the block, who is an expert, who has helped countless kids like yours before, and who is friendly and easy to get along with. That’s not too much to ask. Plenty of tutoring companies, especially bigger ones, don’t take the time or energy to vet their teachers. Why? Because they’re oiled machines: running optimized Google Ads, getting a line of parents talking with their sales agent, setting up matches with their large database of tutors who passed a criminal background check, and bringing in a steady stream of revenue. (Yeah, I’m a bit cynical.) One of our teachers worked for a larger tutoring company, teaching a child for months and seeing good progress. Unfortunately, schedules changed, she couldn’t continue, and so a new tutor filled in. But this new tutor had no experience teaching reading, didn’t know about reading levels, assessments, or even where to begin.

So, here are some questions to ask. Who is this tutor? How long has she been teaching? What specific training does she have? Really, those questions will go a long way and will give you a great idea of the tutor’s qualifications.

What’s the best program?

Honestly, this is sort of a trick question. Why? Because although many programs are good, strictly following a program ignores a simple fact: no two learners are identical. Each student will need something a bit different, at a different pace, presented with a twist, and with many repetitions. So, the better question is this: how strictly does the tutor follow the program? How do they know when to slow down, repeat, or try a different approach? Generally more commercialized tutoring companies and franchises have a lockstep approach, but you should ask anyways—it’ll give good insight into their program.

Now, another word on scripted programs. Many are scripted because they are implemented not by a trained, expert teacher but by a novice. Oftentimes by someone with little or no teaching experience. Now, there are times when trained, expert teachers do use specific programs. But they use them differently, flexibly, making adjustments to fit the need of the individual student. In the end, when they use a program or curriculum, they use it as a general guide. So, in the end, the question of what program is being used is not as important as who’s doing the actual tutoring? So, if someone asks, “Wilson or Orton-Gillingham?” the correct answer is this: the best and most experienced reading teacher.

Okay, one last word on scripted reading programs: they use text with controlled vocabulary. What does this mean? Basically it means that their books are boring. They’re boring because they only use words (or word families) that have been explicitly taught. Think “Ed was mad at Fred and went to bed.” It’s decodable text with no long vowels—super-boring. So, especially for early levels, there are tons of words that can’t go into the books, and what you’re left with are books that are awkward and—again—boring. If you want a recipe for a kid to not enjoy reading, give him these books. But, if you want a recipe for a kid to love reading, to want to read more, and to actually pick up a book on his own, then put some great books in his hand. That’s one of the biggest reasons my daughter turned the corner and became a voracious reader. Her teacher (and her sister) hooked her on fantastic and easy books. Over time, with confidence, and stronger reading skills, these turned into harder books.

How do I know this is all working?

It’s a fair question: if you’re paying for tutoring, how do you know it’s working? So, will your child complete progress-checks or assessments periodically to make sure it is? (This is also the beauty of programs that aren’t scripted but are more flexible. If progress isn’t as much as hoped, changes can be made.) And, just as important, can you actually understand what these progress checks mean? Are they understandable? This is just like regular school—you don’t want a call in April that your child is struggling. If your child is struggling, then you want that call in the fall, so changes can be made, supports can be put into place, and your child has time to grow.

What does it cost?

You can’t ignore this, unless your Bill Gates I guess. So, here are a few things to think about. First, more experienced teachers will cost more, that’s just a reality. Although you could hire a fresh graduate for $25/hour or less, is this really the best option? Now, if that’s your budget, then maybe it’s the best and only option. But know this, an expert teacher will be able to help your child make progress faster. In the end, it could easily be more cost-effective hiring the more expensive but more experienced teacher. So, how much are we talking? It’s somewhere between $40 – $120/hour. Yeah, that’s a giant range, but it’s a giant range because if you hire a tutor privately, meet at the library (think pre-COVID), and pay them cash then this is entirely different than working with an established brick-and-mortar tutoring company.

So, what’s my advice? If you know a teacher who you trust, who’s good, and who’s rate is on the lower end, jump on it. If you don’t and are doing that Google search, use these questions as a guide. If you’re looking for help for your K-8 student, check out what Think City has to offer. In the end, I wish you the best. Let’s be honest, it’s gut-wrenching when your kiddo struggles and there’s not much you can do about it. Parenting is hard and humbling. But know this, just starting the search is one important step. Heck, just reading this is an important step. Because extra help now is always better than extra help three months down the road. Why? Because the sooner your child gets extra help, the sooner he can start closing that gap to become a more confident and successful learner.

Easy reference questions

Does the program directly teach reading, writing, or math skills?
Who’s doing the tutoring? How long has she been teaching, does she have specific training, and what experience do they have teaching struggling students?
What program will they be using? Do they ever veer from the program? For reading programs, what kinds of books do they use?
How do we know my child is making progress? When can we check-in to see if this is working and I’m getting what I’m paying for?
How much money are we talking here?

About the author

I’m Wes Shelley, and I’m the owner of Think City Tutoring. As a psychologist, I’ve worked in schools for over a decade, and I’ve seen firsthand what happens when kids get the intense extra help that they need. It’s invigorating. It’s life-giving. Life-changing. I have fond memories of teams I’ve worked with and the students and families that we’ve touched. So, I launched Think City Tutoring because I wanted to multiply this. Too often this intense and expert teaching was reserved for literally the one or two lowest students in each grade level. So I asked myself the only logical question, “What if we could provide the same support for more kids?” No, there aren’t any shortcuts or gimmicks to kids gaining confidence and thriving. It’s phenomenal teachers doing phenomenal teaching. Think City Tutoring is my try at this: I wanted to build a team of fantastic teachers and let them do their thing.