Many parents believe that a tutor should concentrate on tutoring the subject and the subject only; however, often the problem may exist simply because of a lack of good study habits. Often the student maintains poor study habits with one or more subjects which leads to poor marks in that subject.
As a tutor spends time tutoring his student on a particular subject, he should also incorporate in his teaching effect study habits that would provide the student with better means to succeed in that subject.
For example, a grade four student is having trouble in math. She tells her parents she hates math and wonders why she 'll ever have to be good at it in the first place. Just with that information alone, one can see an attitude problem may be holding her back. In addition to a bad attitude, it may be nothing more than altering and improving the way in which she studies the subject. If tutoring is concentrated merely on the math alone, the girl's attitude may prevail and the full extent of the tutoring may not be appreciated.
By altering a few bad study habits, however, progress can develop a lot sooner, and as a result of achieving that initial success, the girl may learn to appreciate and even like the subject.
When a student is good in a subject, he or she will enjoy it more and naturally find ways to create effective study habits such as being organized and choosing good times to study. If a subject becomes a problem, however, natural study habits may not be present and the student may fall deeper into the hole of academic failure. By altering the bad study habits, the student can slowly progress in the academic subject and perhaps even develop an interest in the subject. Success breeds success no matter how small, it's just consistency of doing the right things that matter.
I have found that young elementary students are not the only ones who suffer from poor study habits, but students in high school as well. If students haven't learned good study habits when they 're young, chances are they won't be employing good study habits when they 're older. Good study habits are learned.
If your child needs tutoring, have the tutor incorporate effective study skills in addition to providing direct help in the subject matter. This will not only help your child better succeed with the problematic subject, but will help in all subjects, not to mention that these skills will stay with the student in later years as well.
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John Chartrand, founder of Ottawa Tutors and Ottawa Robotics Academy in Ottawa, is a certified Ontario teacher with 15 years teaching experience. Read other great articles on Tutors and Tutoring, please visit: http://ottawatutors.org
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