Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Students Whose Parents Believe They Should Make Their Child Smarter

Students Whose Parents Want Them to Perform Flawlessly on the PSAT, SAT, or ACT

Students Who Do Well in One Subject but Not Another

Students Who Have Been Diagnosed with ADHD and Urged to Medicate

Students Who Have Poor Study Habits

Students Who Have Been Diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder

Learning How to Learn: The Importance of Intellectual Independence

CHAPTER ONE - Finding the Right Tutor for Your Child

What Underlying Approach Should a Tutor Take?

What Does Good Tutoring Look Like?

Three Characteristics of Good Tutoring

What Qualifications Should a Tutor Have?

CHAPTER TWO - Expectations and the Tutoring Process

A Cautionary Tale

Basic Assumptions and Expectations

A Frame for Tutoring

CHAPTER THREE - Parents and Tutors

Positive Contributions and Problematic Involvement

Positive Contributions

Problematic Involvement

CHAPTER FOUR - Teachers and Tutors

How Tutors Can Reach Out to Teachers

How Tutors Should Relate to Teachers

The Importance of Selective Contact

CHAPTER FIVE - The Challenges of Learning Disabilities

What Does Learning Disabled Mean?

The Role of Tutoring for Learning Disabled Students

The Challenges of Learning Disabilities for Parents

CHAPTER SIX - The Challenges of Psychological Difficulties

A First Impression

Help for Students with Psychological Difficulties

Variations on Help for Students with Psychological Difficulties

CHAPTER SEVEN - Finding the Right Tutor

How Parents Find Tutors

Resources for Finding the Right Tutor

The Question of Expense

A Brief Survey of Fees

FURTHER RESOURCES FOR PARENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INDEX

Copyright © 2008 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mendelsohn, James.
A parent’s guide to tutors and tutoring : how to support the unique needs of your
child / James R. Mendelsohn.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-44059-9

1. Tutors and tutoring. 2. Children with disabilities—Education.
3. Remedial teaching. 4. Education—Parent participation. I. Title.
LC41.M46 2008
371.39’4—dc22 2008018987

For Philip Simmons and John Binder

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS BOOK would have been impossible without the suggestions, advice, and insights of others. The faults of the book are mine, the strengths of it the result of many.

I am especially grateful to Doctors Deirdre Barrett, Lisa Goldfarb, Brunhild Kring, Stephanie Lesk, Reji Mathew, Pamela Meersand, and William Tucker. The list does not end there: Sam Abrams provided significant insight and unwavering support. Rose Mendelsohn rose to the occasion with a winning suggestion. Dr. Barbara Kravitz helped in so many ways that I can only begin to acknowledge her here. I am grateful for the invitation to speak and thereby test my ideas before the clinicians at the Counseling and Behavioral Health Division of the New York University Student Health Center.

My agent, Judith Riven, was indispensable at virtually every stage, clarifying my confusions, bolstering my determination, and otherwise teaching me how to see this book into being. My editor, Alan Rinzler, was invaluable, first for seeing the possibilities of this book, second for his patience with me, and third for his careful and expert editorial guidance. I thank as well other members of the staff of Jossey-Bass /Wiley, including Nana Twumasi, Mary Garrett, Jen Wenzel, Natalie Lin, Andrea Helmbolt, Jeff Puda, Carrie Wright, and Marcy Marsh for their hard work in producing this book.

Finally and foremost, I thank the parents and students with whom I have worked these past eight years. They continue to tutor me.

INTRODUCTION

To Tutor or Not to Tutor

You’ve bought this book for your own good reasons. You want to know more about tutors and tutoring, specifically about whether your child needs tutoring. Welcome to a community of similarly concerned parents who have the same questions.

Across the nation, tutoring has become a white-hot issue for families and educators, increasing in importance every day. The evidence that tutoring has become a social and educational phenomenon is overwhelming. In 2005 alone, the United States spent $4 billion on tutoring, only $250 million of which was assumed by public school districts. That leaves $3.75 billion, spent mostly by parents. As these numbers show, tutoring is now perceived as a common if not essential part of education.

Parents like you have turned to tutors out of increasing concern, real and imagined, appropriate and ill advised, for the education of your children. That concern is more than the common anxiety about whether a child’s individual needs are being met by a school. Many of you worry that your children may not flourish in an increasingly competitive world, that they may not achieve financial security or social success if they don’t get good grades, if they don’t get into the right college, if they don’t perform flawlessly once there. You may worry that their opportunities will shrink, raising the real possibility that they will lead less happy or comfortable lives than you do. What parent would not have these concerns in such a competitive world?

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!