Tutoring for a 7 year old

[basketlamp]

We are considering getting a tutor for my 7 year old son. Due to go into Year 3 in September. His teacher says he is average in Maths and English with Maths being the favoured subject. I know 7 is quite young for a tutor some would say, but I feel he needs some extra help with writing and comprehension just to help him keep up with school. He dislikes English and writing in general, he is more hands on which is fine.

Are there any positive stories out there of children who had a tutor at a young age? Did you find it overall helped with their interest in learning as they could keep up more in class? Son is in a good state school but could do with more one on one interaction. We of course also do extra learning at home.

Bump

My (now 10yo) DD1 has gone to a tutor weekly for maths from a younger age, but this is due to SEN that was causing her to fall more and more behind when we first employed the tutor, and now she just needs a bit more support to keep her from falling back again. Her tutor is a SEN specialist and has been invaluable spotting DD's needs long before her school did and her eventual diagnoses, tailoring lessons to DD's learning style, and advising us how to get more help from school. She is finally meeting expectations, but very much still needs the 1-2-1 time to ensure new topics are cemented and alternative methods taught if needed.
If she was comfortably meeting expectations with what school were able to provide, we wouldn't bother however. DD2 is at or above expectations across the board and copes well with classroom learning, so I would rather spend the money on other things than also send her to a tutor. TBH tutoring isn't something we've ever considered for her. We get a very good deal as DD1 has been going for so long, but it is still a large monthly expense.

Unless there's a specific need for a tutor at 7 I think it's unnecessary. You say your child is average, that's fine! Unless the teacher says they're falling behind I'd say use the money for clubs and fun activities and I say this as a teacher.

We started tutoring DS at 6. He's left handed and was struggling with writing, sadly his school were not at all supportive saying he will always struggle 🙄. We have 45 min sessions once a week and we chose a tutor who was also a SENCO lead as DS is not a school lover. We've been really happy with the confidence she has given DS and with 1-2-1 tutoring his writing has come on leaps and bounds. My advice is work out what you want your child to get from a tutor and look for a tutor to fit those needs rather than a generic one. I can't say it's helped his interest in learning 😂 but it's definitely helped his confidence; and we like the fact that she covers the school stuff so if he hasn't understood it he can go back through it with the tutor to ensure he does understand.

Thank you.

My son isn't falling behind according to the teacher but looking through his books from school, there are so many worksheets unfinished, writing is poor and spelling still needs work on. For me that feels like he is falling behind and the teacher says there is potential there to do better and I'm hoping some one on one teaching will help that. It is a huge expense on top of the clubs he does now but I feel like I need to prevent him from slipping rather than trying to sort it out if he does go backwards.

That's extremely unsupportive and excluding of the school! So unfair for the child.

Sounds like a very positive experience getting some tutoring, I guess some children love learning and others just tolerate it.
My son loves to learn but also has poor concentration so then will get bored quickly. The classroom model as it is - sitting and learning all day isn't for him, he is more engaged being hands on. But I can't change the school model so he will have to adapt, I hope a tutor will help him just keep up.

Are you confident your perceptions that it isn't that good are correct? The reason I ask is that I was surprised that the teacher put my 9yos writing as meeting expectations. I find it very hard to read as its beautifully neat but cursive, and her spelling is virtually unintelligible as she is dyslexic. I was convinced she must be behind. I asked my mate who is a primary teacher and showed her my daughter's workbooks. She said it's fabulous and borderline exceeding expectations. I am looking for a tutor for her as I think she'll benefit from developing a relationship with someone external to support her if she needs to review school work and learn in a different way, being dyslexic.

I guess - I looked at his report again and it says working at the expected standard but the effort he puts in is poor. He gets distracted easily and I think some parts is that he doesn't understand the task at hand and so distraction is a way to procrastinate. We are working on this.

I showed a friend who is a teacher and she said he would need to work on comprehension and spelling as a standard on top of what is taught at school. She said my son's maths skills are pretty good, that's his strength and he also says himself he wants to do better at that and learn more.

I was quite studious and he has friends/cousins who are bright in some aspects and similar age so I do find myself comparing. I know he is capable but just needs a little more help and confidence..

You could try and see. But maybe the easiest way to help children with language and spelling is by reading. Find some engaging books and stories and read with him.
The ability to write and form letters gets better as fine motor skills improve - you could improve those muscles in other ways too if he's currently reluctant to write.

We read so much, always have since a baby, a variety of books, always at the library so absolutely have this covered, he loves reading and being read to but sometimes I do feel he doesn't understand what has just been read. He often complains his hand hurts when writing so he needs to build that strength up. He plays a lot of Lego but how could we help him to increase his strength and his gross motor skills?

Some thoughts from my other kid then! He's 7yo is going into yr3. His writing is his 'weakest discipline' if I can put it that way. It is still very big and he doesn't form letters correctly. Preschool first raised concerns about his fine motor. We did things like 'dough discos' from YouTube and lots of colouring. Like your child he does lots of Lego etc. I can't say anything has done much to help. I think this is just the way he is and have to trust it'll come with time. I've seen x-ray images online that show how bones fuse together, so a 5yo hand will be less developed than a 7yo. Maybe he's a slow outlier. I'll never know. I think it's difficult because by yr3 he'll be doing a lot of writing at school and that'll be difficult for him. I think a tired hand will make things worse not better. Interestingly although he's right handed, he does things like play ukulele and archery left handed.

Our 7 year old is doing fine at school, some subjects better than others, but handwriting is a big problem so I have downloaded some sheets from Twinkl and practicing every day. Also don't want the maths skills to slip so we are doing The Maths Factor free online program. It might be better to pay for a Twinkl subscription and do some worksheets each day rather than shell out for formal tutoring at this stage..

DS had tutoring in Maths and English from Y3. It wasn't that he was behind or we wanted to push him, but he lacked confidence and would not ask questions if he didn't understand a task. Having the 1-2-1 support really benefited him. He continued with the the tutoring right through his GCSE's and has just taken his A levels in Maths, Chemistry and Physics. He had a tutor for Maths A level. Mainly due to his confidence as he is still pretty quiet and would not ask his teachers for help.

I have tutored many children and would say that he could benefit from a tutor at that age. I would tend to do more fun and interactive sessions for the younger age range and plenty of learning through games for instance- there are lots of these on BBC Bitesize and other websites. It sounds as if he could benefit from movement breaks as well. Essentially to help him learn and also see learning as fun- if starting at 7 you want to keep them engaged and enjoying the experience.

I'm one of 3 and all three of us had extra handwriting practice in primary school. My handwriting changes pretty much every time I pick up a pen. My school was very big rewarding those that had perfect neat handwriting and those that were keen to answer questions. Being a quiet and shy person with poor handwriting they wrote me off as not being that intelligent until they did any tests or assessments not based on just the teachers observations. I still remember the line in my year 6 report after getting one of the top marks in the year in the sats. "X fluked some good test results". I went on to get a 1st class MChem and a PhD! I hated being separated out and ridiculed for my handwriting. I went through a teenaged rebellion for a while where I deliberately wrote as illegibly as I could in any lesson where I didn't like the teacher.

My parents are both severely dyslexic and I probably have mild dyslexic or at least share some commonality with my parents and one of my sisters is a bit worse than me. I found writing my PhD hard work and it needed a lot of proof reading because my English skills are lacking compared to my maths and science. My sister had a maths tutor for her GCSEs and I did some tuition with her for her a levels. Both me and the tutur picked up that her problem was not answering the question but interpreting the question correctly and her language skills weren't quite there to allow her to. I think we both would have benefited from English support in primary school that was less about handwriting and more about comprehension as even when you take the maths and science routes you can find yourself limited by English skills.

I think it is probably worth some discussion with your child about the reason things are half finished and use that to work out what skills could do with some support. Is it a time issue? Is it concentration or boredom or not caring? I developed depression in my teens and subjects I liked I kept up but I remember not liking my Spanish teacher and did the absolute bare minimum for her. I didn't feel I had much control over life and struggled to express myself. Not engaging with her classes was one way I could show the internal screams. My niece went through a period of not being able the finish her work because she was having to help the other pupils on her table who didn't understand the task and didn't leave her enough time to finish herself. She was moved to a different table and then she was able to get on with her work and complete it in the time. There could be a long list of reasons why he isn't completing the worksheets only one of which is not knowing the answer to the question. He might benefit from extra support the trick is to find what that support should look like.

If he is saying writing hurts, it would be worth the 5 mins to google the signs of hypermobility and get him to try the positions. Amongst DD's various SEN, she is hypermobile and it causes considerable pain when writing. Using pencil grips, chunky easy grip pens and loop scissors made an immediate difference to her comfort levels, although it is taking some time to improve her messy handwriting (a combo of being a mess as a direct result of pain and of less practice to avoid the pain). We didn't discover her pain until relatively recently at an OT appointment as she had assumed it was normal and not mentioned it, and we'd been too ignorant of her bendiness and what it meant to ask (her hypermobility wasn't diagnosed until she was 8yo as a co-morbidity during her SEN diagnoses). Writing pain isn't always down to a lack of stamina.

That's really interesting. I've not heard of this thanks for mentioning it. I've just ordered some pencil grips and thicker pencils and will see if this will help him.

Yes the scans are so interesting to see! Sounds like you've done a lot to help with the motor skills.
Mine is going into year 3 aswell and it's going to be full on sitting down writing and work all day, he is in for a shock. I've just ordered some thick pencils and some pencil grips at the advice of the other poster and will see if that helps. Perhaps something like that might help yours to ease the writing pain?

Yes we've got fat triangular short pencils.

Tutoring is expensive. I would buy some CGP workbooks and do a page or two with him each evening.

We do these most days - I agree they are great.

We got an online one for mine in lockdown. They made learning fun with interactive screen things and mine responded well to the one-to-one.

If you want to improve his sitting, focus and concentration plus fine motor skills, try seeing with him. Practise basic seeing stitches on Aida (embroidery fabric)plus button sewing. Or bead threading etc.

I run a tutoring business, teaching ages 7-11 in English and creative writing, and I also have a ten year old daughter. 100% it makes a difference. I have tutored many children who have come on in leaps and bounds, defied expectations, and attained places at incredibly competitive schools, as a result of that one to one tutoring. There are certain skills - especially exam based ones- that are better grasped one to one, and with repetition. As a tutor, I can also really zone in on an individual child’s strengths and weaknesses, tailoring my teaching to them perfectly. This year I have given my daughter the same advantage, by giving her tutoring sessions, because it really works. We live in a competitive world, and when it comes to exams, it’s not necessarily how academic someone is, but also whether they have grasped certain skillsets (for example knowing exactly what an examiner is looking for/ eliminating repeated mistakes that haven’t been fully recognised or ironed out). Life is about a lot more than academia, but yes, it helps. Feel free to pm me for any additional help!

Do check his joints too, the test is so easy. This is the link for the Ehler-Danlos Society's website
www.ehlers-danlos.com/assessing-joint-hypermobility/
If it is hypermobility, it won't just affect his writing. At best you will find he has problems such as regularly going over on his ankles and lacking coordination in PE, but if it is due to something such as EDS, there are other health concerns that can be much more serious. I assumed it just meant being extra bendy (and how cool is that?!), but there is much more to it. If he scores highly, it is worth a GP trip to pursue a formal diagnosis.