June 14, 2000
Tutor time
By Cathy Willoughby
Staff Writer
For some children, just a little bit of one-on-one help can make a world of difference in their studies.
And to offer those youngsters that extra help with reading or math, are tutors. They may be older students themselves, or retired teachers. Yet they provide that much needed boost in a child's self-confidence.
Summer tutors range in age from college students to those whose own offspring are college age.
This summer at St. Joseph Guardian House, two college education majors are working one-on-one with youngsters.
Hoping to make some extra money for school, while gathering valuable teaching experience, is 19-year-old Katie Brodman.
She will be entering her sophomore year at Ohio Dominicum College, pursuing a degree in Early Childhood, preschool through third grade, education.
"I wanted to do something relevant to my major,'' she explained. "And that would give me valuable experience. I checked out the possibility of doing this with a teacher at St. Joseph School and at the public schools. It really came together.''
Brodman tutors youngsters five days a week, for an hour a session. They can see her once, or several times a week, depending on their needs. And she sees siblings, two at a time, for $8 apiece an hour. Individuals are tutored at the rate of $10 an hour. Even though the response has been good, she still has openings available, and will work with youngsters until the week before school begins in August.
"In the original flier I sent out, I said that I would tutor for reading, math and writing skills,'' Brodman said. "I have even had a request for science, yet the majority has been reading, math and science.''
She sees students from kindergarten through eighth graders. "It's quite a spectrum,'' she admitted. "Some of them just want to keep going with their studies over the summer, they feel that three months is too long to be away from school. And some parents waited until they saw their students' report cards and they were horrified ... and those kids need a lot of remediation.''
Rather than boring, rote instruction, Brodman tries to pique the child's interest, and look for ways to build on that. "If the kids come in and they have an interest in something, like writing stories, I want to encourage that,'' Brodman said.
She said the response to her tutoring service has been overwhelmingly positive. "The teachers were very excited,'' she explained. "And so were the parents. In some cases, the teachers have approached the parents if the child needed extra help. One particular teacher sent home a newsletter letting parents know about it.''
Another education student, Nancy Kelbley from Heidelberg College, also holds tutoring sessions in Guardian House.
"We really both put our names in at the school at the same time,'' Brodman said. "She got my number and contacted me. We share materials if we need to, and I use the kitchen or dining room.''
Brodman is considering continuing the tutoring until she attains her college degree. "Or maybe even after that,'' Brodman said. "Both of us had other jobs, but this is the most rewarding summer job I have ever had, especially when I have had such a tremendous response from the St. Joe people.''
She said that though her rates seem expensive, a great deal of preparation goes into each session. "I spend one hour planning per hour I tutor,'' she said. "And it's hard having such a wide range of learning levels for he students.''
For her resources, she uses some of her college books, along with some that the school allowed her to use. "And I have several different reading series,'' Brodman said. "Both my mom and my aunt are teachers, so I have access to a lot of kids materials.''
And she hasn't had any discipline problems with the youngsters. "I think that when you are working one on one, you don't see it,'' she said. "If the student had gotten a 'C' in conduct, you would never know. We work at their own pace, so they don't have time to be bored or to goof off.''
To encourage students to keep at their studies, Brodman gives once a week students a story starter in a journal, to work on it at home. "They have to bring it back,'' Brodman said of the work. "That means they have to sit down once or twice at least to work when they are not with me to keep them going.''
Tiffin resident Cynthia Weaver turned to tutoring when needing money to get through graduate school. Now, with a daughter who is a freshman at college herself, she has found tutoring has offered her a chance to individualize her teaching.
"I really liked the one-on-one, and liked the things you could do one to one,'' Weaver said. "It gave me satisfaction so I decided to stay with it and make a career out of tutoring, and not go back to the classroom.''
She said that after receiving her master's degree in education, with a math concentration, she did some time subbing in the public schools. "Then I had my daughter and I went back to tutoring,'' she explained.
She works with youngsters from Monday through Thursday after school, until about 9 p.m. "I have a few daytime people, who are older or home schooling, and some kindergartners during the day,'' she said.
She gets most of her new students through word of mouth referrals, although when she moved to the Tiffin area 10 years ago, she placed some ads in the newspaper. She currently tutors 14 different youngsters, several a couple of times a week.
"I do both remedial work, for some kids who wanted to go to good colleges,'' Weaver said. "And I have done some work augmenting work for ACT and SAT's or to meet a students specific goals.''
Although she does some reading work, "here or there'' her specialty is math, from simple arithmetic to pre-calculus.
"Generally, they are good students but math is a specific problem for them. And they need additional help to to be able to bring their scores up,'' Weaver said. "That way they feel more in control of the material.''
For Weaver, math facts come easily and she can "translate'' the methods she uses to the youngsters. "I can take the fact that I understand it, and that I can teach and am able to talk about it in enough different ways to reach different students,'' she explained. "Because of my experience, I can look at the material from different angles. And I will use anything that will help show them the concepts.''
One example is a "One hundred board'' that has all of the numbers displayed in a grid, from one to a hundred. "It's a simple little thing, but it gives them the structure of the number system,'' Weaver said. "My tools are very simple, and purposely so. Simple, straightforward things can be applied immediately to what they already know.''
She said that students confused by math tend to look outside of themselves, searching for the answers to the calculations they need to make. "When they are one on one with the instructor, they start to trust their own reasoning skills more,'' Weaver said.
The average age the children come to her for help is third or fourth grade, Weaver said, although she has helped a 21-year-old who went back to college, needing help with a math requirement.
"And sometimes you have a good student and they enter high school, and have problems with the higher math,'' Weaver said. "And they are not used to having any problems at all, they are used to sailing through.''