Tutoring vs. Training: A Parent’s Guide to Making THE RIGHT CHOICE

Your child has difficulty in third grade math. You send him to a tutor. The tutor works diligently for several weeks with him on his grade-level math concepts and assignments. He goes on to pass the third grade with Bs.

So far so good.

Summer comes and goes. His fourth grade assignments hit, and once again, basic weaknesses prevent him from learning the new concepts. The processing and visualizing skills he needs just aren’t there. You could pay for another round of tutoring to help with these assignments as well, but the underlying reason he failed to understand them in the first place goes untouched. The weakness will reemerge ...

Current learning science makes it necessary to look at learning as two distinct parts: Specific academic study and a student’s underlying ability to learn. To create the best opportunity for maximum academic progress, the underlying mental skills that lead to easy learning must be as strong and efficient as possible.

Brain training (also known as mental or cognitive skills training) is significantly different than tutoring. Common academic study, and special help such as tutoring, both focus on specific academic tasks, and simply ignore the condition of a student’s underlying mental skills. In fact, success in general academics or special tutoring is completely dependent on the student’s underlying ability to learn.

For those who struggle or fail, it is not necessarily his or her study habits or missing academic knowledge that is the problem. Underlying cognitive weakness is often the cause of the difficulty. Until the underlying skills that provide the basic ability to learn are strengthened, tutoring help can only produce temporary progress at best.

Struggles WILL reemerge at the very next new challenge, and the next until the challenges grow too difficult even with tutoring help, or the student simply gets frustrated and gives up. If this is your child, he or she is at risk of being identified as a failure by these repeated struggles. You risk paying for tutoring each and every year with absolutely no guarantee of future success.

Appropriate mental skills training is different. It provides you and your student the chance to get to the root of the problem and literally rebuild his or her basic ability to read and learn. A struggling student, or one seeking to optimize academic performance, must consider training the mental skills that are the foundation to learning.

Janet Rutzel is the Executive Director of LearningRx Main Line.

LearningRx specializes in identifying and correcting the underlying cognitive skill deficiencies that keep people from achieving their full potential in school, business or life. Personal brain trainers use intensive, one-on-one, game-like exercises to quickly enhance weak cognitive skills such as attention, memory, processing speed, and problem solving. More than 15,000 students have gone through the training and graduates now see average gains of 4.12 years across nine essential cognitive learning areas. To learn more, visit www.learningrx.com.