MAKING THE GRADE

BY YESENIA ROBLES, CHALKBEAT COLORADO

As educators look for ways to help students as they recover academically from pandemic interruptions, tutoring can play a key role.

But across the country, many leaders are seeing that some of the students who need the help the most aren’t taking advantage.

So, as parents, what questions should you be asking about tutoring and whether your student can benefit? Here are answers to some common questions.

When should I consider tutoring for my child?

Rhonda Haniford, associate commissioner of the school quality and support division at the Colorado Department of Education, said the first thing to keep in mind is that different tutoring programs are designed to achieve different goals.

While parents might think tutoring is only to help students who are struggling academically, sometimes programs are designed instead to keep students engaged, accelerate their learning, or hone in on specific skills or needs.

If a parent believes their child is struggling academically, Haniford said they should look at what their school offers.

“First, I would say meet with the school and talk about what they’re seeing,” Haniford said. “Talk about what’s working, what are the child’s strengths as well as where are their needs. And can tutoring help? It depends on what the tutoring program is designed to accomplish.”

Parent Keri Rodrigues said her five sons’ report cards showed good grades and that her boys were doing well. But when she asked them to read to her at home, she noticed two were struggling.

“These were things I could see,” Rodrigues said.

Rodrigues is co-founder of the advocacy group National Parents Union. She advises parents to trust their instincts and ask questions when they believe their children might be struggling. That means starting with more conversations with teachers.

When talking with teachers, Rodrigues said, one of the most important questions to ask is whether your child is reading at grade level, and if not, what is being done to get them there.

“Report cards often are not telling us this information,” she said.

Ashara Baker, a mother to a rising second grader and also a leader with

National Parents Union, advises parents that if their child attends a school that has low state test scores, they should consider tutoring even if it seems like their child is doing well.

What questions should I ask to know if this might be a good tutoring program?

Haniford said the first step is to make sure that the goals of the tutoring program match your child’s needs.

After that, she said, parents should ask if their school has a diagnostic assessment of their child. Most schools do, she said. That information can guide tutors to a student’s needs and to build on their strengths.

Rodrigues likes to remind parents that they don’t need to be wellversed in education curriculum to start asking questions. She suggests asking if a program is using evidence-based practices, which are strategies that are based on research and have been proven to work, and if their reading programs are based on the science of reading, the research about how children’s brains learn to read.

“If you hear things like balanced literacy, that might be a problem,” she said. Balanced literacy is an approach to teaching reading based on a debunked philosophy that reading is natural and requires encouragement. “Even if you just remember they should say ‘science of reading,’ you shouldn’t be intimidated.”

Some research shows that