Tutoring offers many advantages over classroom teaching: the instructional style and even the content can be fitted to an individual student’s needs.

How, then, do you personalize tutoring for your child, teen, or adult family member?

First, determine whether the student would benefit from tutoring. Next, decide on the tutoring method: private, online or at a tutoring center. Third, source tutors. Finally, choose the best available tutor.

Students’ tutoring needs are varied and complex. Your child is an individual distinct from millions of grade-level “peers” throughout the world. If you have a gifted and talented child, you may want one or more tutors to help your child achieve his or her full potential in a variety of academic and artistic studies, not just in one area. For a special-needs student, you’ll want a tutor with experience in helping in very particular ways and in a variety of subjects. Your teenager may be preparing for standardized tests, hoping for acceptance at prestigious universities. A tutor with specialty in such tests can help raise scores significantly. An adult family member may be trying to finish a master’s degree, taking challenging courses while working full-time, and in need of a tutor to expedite learning.

Perhaps your child has difficulty with concepts in science or mathematics. Learning disabilities are now fairly ubiquitous, with 5% to 8% of school-age children identified as having some kind of disability in mathematics alone.

Should your child suffer from Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), s/he needs the extra attention and patience that a tutor specializing in this learning disability provides. ADHD diagnoses in the US have increased by 42% in the past 8 years. For more details on this statistics see https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/facts-statistics-infographic.

A student with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), even with a mild form of it, will need accommodation and understanding. For example, s/he may feel the need to write with a particular type of pencil or pen, may need to sharpen a pencil often, or may be squeamish about touching other persons’ papers.

Where answering test questions is impaired by a condition, the tutor can gently guide the student to overcome blockages to test-taking – even if temporarily. And some special school programs allow for extra time.

Those with Dyslexia often need a little more time to read carefully – even for math questions. They may be aided with the encouragement to notice when, either visually or mentally, letters or numbers switch. They need encouragement to switch them back mentally before producing an answer.

Learning disabilities can often be mitigated, even resolved entirely, by way of the removal of unnatural physical and chemical agents from the student’s school and home environments and from their diets. Many excellent websites are devoted to removing wifi radiation from the home, clearing dirty electricity (transients) from wiring, maintaining the home environment naturally – without commercial chemicals, and removing sugars, gluten, dyes, preservatives, pesticides and genetically modified organisms from food. Nontoxic living is often less expensive – allowing more available funds for tutoring.

Since 2008, many families have been struggling financially and can barely afford tutoring. These parents can save money by setting up semi-private tutoring with another student with similar needs. Moreover, in the US, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requires that low-performing low-income schools must provide free tutoring services to children who qualify.

Step 1: Determine whether your family member would benefit from personalized tutoring.

Give personalized tutoring a go if one or more of the following is true:
• The student is struggling with homework exercises.
• The student’s teachers, and/or the student him or herself, express concern about studies.
• The student exhibits a drop in assessment results.
• The student receives all perfect scores, and/or is bored, and wishes to move ahead more quickly in studies.
• There is simply not enough time to complete all homework and study as required.
• Instruction in the classroom appears to be inadequate.

While not urgent, you may want to consider hiring a tutor for your family member in order to:
• Increase confidence in the student’s favorite subject.
• Allow the student to pursue interests that are not provided in a school.
• Supplement classroom teaching amidst educational budget cuts.
• Ensure the optimal assessment results in preparation for standardized tests and university applications.

With the public education system often strained to its limits, and college admissions requirements ever rising, most parents opt for tutoring to resolve difficulties or to give a student a competitive edge. Occasionally, students themselves request tutoring in order to feel more confident in class, or to succeed where classroom teaching is inadequate.

The short answer to Step 1? Every student can benefit from personalized tutoring. In fact, as a professional tutor and CEO of TutorZ, Dirk Wagner has never seen a student who did not benefit from tutoring. Even overachieving students gain much from personalized tutoring, achieving more than they could ever have imagined in their best areas. Gifted students also feel especially relieved when they overcome their weaknesses.

Now that you have decided to give personalized tutoring a go, consider the various methods of tutoring.

Step 2: Decide on the most appropriate method of tutoring.

Considering your family member’s predilections and preferences, and your budget, time and travel limitations, you will do well in selecting the most appropriate method of tutoring.

Private tutoring is the most common type of tutoring and usually the most desirable for younger children and those with learning disabilities. Private tutors often visit at your home; however, you may prefer to meet at school or another public location. Typically, private tutors have years of experience and know their subjects very well. Tutors who are still attending college know the teachers, textbooks and curricula that will enhance the quality of tutoring seasons. More experienced tutors, usually familiar with contemporary curricula, will also often have produced their own unique, engaging materials that sustain attention and help students achieve their highest potential.

Semi-private tutoring can work especially well for middle-school students and teens who do not wish to experience yet more school outside of school. Working alongside a friend or two, the students feel a mild but friendly sense of competition, with which the tutor’s assignments are more likely to be fulfilled. Students enjoy their homework more when they can complete it with the help of a friend or a small team.

School-based tutoring can be helpful, in that all curriculum materials are readily at hand. And the tutoring is occasionally free of charge! However, the teachers who provide after-school tutoring may not have a great interest in doing so, relative to the interest of professional tutors. And their teaching methods may not vary much from what occurs in the classroom.

Online tutoring has become mainstream, with the proliferation of the Internet. The reasons for deciding to go for online tutoring are compelling:

• You are unable to find a top-notch tutor near your home.
• You’re looking for a true expert in the subject.
• You desire tutoring in a less common subject such as thermodynamics or crocheting.
• Your schedule makes attending regular sessions difficult.
• You wish to save gas money by not having to commute to the meeting place.

Online tutoring allows your child to work with a teacher in real time over the Internet. Communication between student and online tutor is often accomplished using headsets. This way the student’s hands are free to type or to write on an electronic or paper pad. There are many applications available for video conferencing, so that student and tutor can interact face to face and share images of the curriculum content. I recommend Skype, which is fully featured and free for one-to-one connections throughout the world. Subjects like reading, math and programming are well suited for online tutoring. Online tutoring for hands-on subjects such as knitting and learning to play a musical instrument may not seem ideal, but is becoming more popular, nonetheless.

In general, the older the student, the easier it is to make online tutoring work well. If your child is too distracted or otherwise unable to sit through an online session, opt for private tutoring. With Internet, there are many tempting distractions beyond the tutoring content. We at TutorZ have found that online tutoring works best for kids when parents accompany the sessions – even when parents engage in other activities while present. When parents cannot attend, they usually opt to leave young students with tutoring centers.

Tutoring centers are companies that employ tutors with various kinds of experience. Some centers use standardized materials and methods. They may offer diagnostic testing to help develop a learning strategy for the student. Placed with a tutor for sessions one or more times per week, the student and tutor will work together after school, in the evening or on a weekend day. Some tutoring centers offer group and semi-private tutoring, which can be less expensive than individual, private tutoring. You’ll need to decide whether the student will achieve his or her objectives in a group (class), 2-person (semi-private), or one-on-one (private) context.

Step 3: Sourcing Tutors

Word-of-mouth often works well to source a tutor. Asking other parents and students who have used a tutor can be a good way of ensuring that the tutor is not only capable, but impressive at his or her job.

When word-of-mouth has not produced the desired tutoring situation, it’s worth having a look at local newspapers or magazines, bulletin boards in libraries, community colleges and even grocery stores. You might also check on community sites such as craigslist. Tutors tend to advertise their services somewhat informally. Eventually, these traditional methods tend to give way to online tutor referrals.

Today, the quickest and most effective way of finding a personal tutor is by way of an online search. Many tutors have their own websites, and there are several tutor directories that list home educators by area. When looking for a tutor, think about the keywords that will bring up what you seek: the subject, level and geographic area of the tutor. For example, searching for “math tutor in Houston, TX” will show you a dozens of good sites. Be as specific as you can in entering your Google or (better yet, for privacy) Startpage query. For example, if you’re look for a college calculus tutor, then it’s better to enter more specifically “calculus college tutor in Houston, TX”. The search results will surely help to resolve difficulties with your college math!

The Internet has produced wonderful changes. While advertising ads on craigslist or backpage was state-of-the-tech during the Web 1.0 generation, we are fortunate today to have tutoring marketplace companies, such as TutorZ.com. These new types of tutoring services maintain an eBay-like marketplace where you are able to choose from literally tens of thousands of tutors! Treated as independent contractors, these tutor-contractors are rated and reviewed and have passed application tests. Moreover, criminal background checks can be purchased, as desired.

Sourcing a tutor is now as easy as ABC. Simply type your search query (e.g. “calculus college tutor in Houston, TX”) into the TutorZ’ search box and screen the in-person tutors nearby. These tutoring marketplace sites protect families from tutors with less than stellar reputations – and visa versa. And they bring you’re the highest-quality available tutors.

Step 4: Choosing the Right Tutor

Choosing the right tutor presupposes choice. The choice offered by local classified tutoring ads or even craigslist listings is often insufficient. That’s where these Internet tutoring marketplaces shine: They offer dozens to thousands of tutors in your local area. TutorZ has an impressive selection of over 40,000 certified and trusted tutors. Whether you prefer a female tutor for your young daughter or an PhD expert for a statistics research paper, a caring special education tutor for a child suffering from ADHD, or simply a tutor who is affordable – TutorZ has them all.

While choice is good, making the right match is your final step. Research conducted by TutorZ shows that the blend of technology and human intelligence matches students with tutors most easily, efficiently and effectively. Here, too, you may request personalized matching and a tutoring consultation to perfect your choice.

In summary, tutoring needs differ between students; but virtually all students benefit from tutoring. Whether private, semi-private or online tutoring is sought, we recommend you shop for tutors on new, online tutoring marketplaces like TutorZ. Here you are empowered through choice and personalized matchmaking to find the very best tutor for your needs.

(This article is rewrite from Dirk’s original article 4 Steps to Personalize Tutoring for Students).