Award-Winning English Tutors

Percent of Students Who Met College Readiness Benchmarks On The ACT English Section

It can be terrifying for a parent to realize that sending their child to school each day may not be enough to prepare them for college.

Academic Foundation

English is perhaps the only subject that has a direct impact on all of the other subjects your child will take. Math classes have word problems while science and social studies require extensive reading and writing. This is true regardless of your child's grade level or the exact type of science, math, and social studies they are currently learning. As the requirements for your child's English classes increase so will the communication and reading demands of their other classes. Reading levels increase steadily as do expectations surrounding the clarity of writing.

If your child is struggling with their English work or work that involves reading and writing in other classes, English tutors can help. When your child works with an English tutor they will have the opportunity to focus on the skills they specifically need to develop in addition to what they may be reviewing in their current classroom. You see, when a student is struggling with English language concepts it is often due to a deficiency in a skill to which they were previously introduced. Because of the complexity of the language, English classes rely on the foundation of previous years to build the structure for the next level of concepts.

English Skills Evolve

The truth is English is hard. That's why in the very beginning letters, the core of the language, are taught through song and imagery. Children can spend a significant amount of time just learning the sounds letters make in preparation for learning how letters fit together to make words and then all the meanings of those various words. Going further with this example, if your child is in a class and struggling with their spelling or vocabulary it could be because they didn't fully master the ways in which the letters could be used. While this may seem like an overly simple example, if your child is about to face Shakespeare the issue remains the same. English skills evolve throughout your child's academic career and English tutoring can help your child strengthen their foundation.

For an example of what is expected of students by the 6th grade, please review the following table.

Common Core English Language Standards - 6th Grade

• Conventions of Standard English:
  • Pronoun usage - subjective, objective, possessive
  • Intensive pronouns
  • Inappropriate shifts in pronoun number and person
  • Vague pronouns (i.e., ones with unclear or ambiguous antecedents).
  • Recognize variations from standard English in their own and others' writing and speaking, and identify and use strategies to improve expression in conventional language
  • Punctuation (commas, parentheses, dashes)
  • Spelling
• Knowledge of Language
  • Vary sentence patterns for meaning, reader/listener interest, and style
  • Maintain consistency in style and tone
• Vocabulary Acquisition and Use
  • Using context clues, Latin and Greek affixes and roots, to understand word or phrase meaning
  • Consult reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning or its part of speech
  • Verify the preliminary determination of the meaning of a word or phrase
  • Understand figures of speech in context
  • Using relationships between words to understand their meaning
  • Distinguish among the connotations (associations) of words with similar denotations

As you can see, even by the 6th grade the expected foundation of your child's English mastery is substantial. A personal English tutor can work with your child both to discover if they are on grade level and to help them with their current assignments.

Why Work With a Tutor?

Working with a personal tutor offers many benefits. The most important is the individual academic attention your child will receive. In a traditional classroom setting teachers are limited to core curriculum based on the grade level of the child. With the adoption of standardized exams testing children on specific curriculum each year, there is very little room for academic customization within the classroom. Tutors have far greater flexibility in this area. If your child is struggling with something from a previous year, their English tutor can review that material until they have gained a sufficient understanding before moving on to the next thing. If your child is having difficulty completing their current homework or understanding grade level reading assignments, the tutor can focus tutoring sessions on these areas. Unlike a regular classroom, it is your child's individual learning needs that are the driving force behind the development of lesson plans.

A personal tutor also has the time to discover your child's specific learning style. While a classroom teacher does not have the time or resources to customize lesson plans that deliver information geared towards each learning style, a private tutor does. A professional tutor can take your child's personal learning style into consideration when creating study sessions to make them more engaging and effective for your child than what they may typically experience in a classroom setting.

Finally, working with a tutor gives both the parent and child far greater scheduling flexibility. Families today have demanding schedules that can make it difficult to fit in appointments at regularly scheduled intervals. Private tutoring provides greater scheduling flexibility that makes it more likely you and your child will be able to fit in the tutoring sessions each week.

Is English Tutoring Near me the Right Solution?

Working with an English tutor is the right solution for children who are struggling with previous or current concepts. English tutors can even help gifted students who are bored with the academic offerings at their school and who want exposure to more advanced material.

Many parents initially think the best tutoring is that which is in person. However, the key to successful tutoring is in the individual attention rather than the physical proximity. An online tutor offers the same benefits as an "English tutor near me."

Can English Tutors Near Me Help with Standardized Test Prep?

English is one of the core subjects of any student's education. From the state-mandated exams they take in grade school to advanced college and university assessments, they'll face a variety of standardized exams that include English sections. Their private instructor can certainly help them prepare for any of the tests they may face, whether in the classroom or as part of a standardized testing program.

Standardized exams require more than just content review, as each test has its own set of rules and procedures, time limits, group of sections, and so on. Your student's private instructor can help them become familiar with the format of the standardized exam they're going to take, which could help reduce any testing anxiety they might feel. For example, it's important to know what to do if they don't know the answer to a question. On some tests, making an informed guess could help their final score. On others, it could hurt their score, and in that case, leaving the question blank is the best choice. Their English tutor can present these types of situations and the best choices to deal with them to your student during their sessions.

Some of the standardized exams that have English sections include:

• ISEE – The ISEE is an admissions exam for students applying to independent or private schools. Students can take this test at any time between grades 1 and 11, and there are a total of six tests that increase in complexity. Each level has Reading and Writing sections, where students will demonstrate what they've learned in their English studies. Some subjects evaluated are reading comprehension, story or essay writing skills, and verbal reasoning.
• ACT – The ACT is taken by high school juniors or seniors and the score will be considered by colleges and universities when making admissions and placement decisions. A few of the topics students need to know include language usage and mechanics, grammar, sentence structure, and rhetorical skills.
• CLEP Composition and Literature Exams – There are five CLEP exams that fall under the English umbrella, including American Literature, College Composition, English Literature, and two more. Your student can take these in order to earn credits for introductory English courses, whether their major is in English or another area.

English tutoring can be especially helpful in preparing your child for any number of careers that require an English degree. Look at the table below for some of the top careers associated with English majors for a better idea of the possibilities connected with pursuing mastery of the English language.

Careers for English Majors

• Teacher
• Publishing
• Content Marketing Manager
• Instructional Design
• Human Resources
• Advertising Account Executive
• Proposal Manager
• Technical Writer
• Freelance Writer
• Editor

English is a core academic requirement in all grade levels and throughout college. The English language is considered the language of business throughout the world and mastery of its complexities begins at a very early age. It's also important to remember the rules of English are among the most complex in the world. That's why English tutoring can be so valuable at all stages of your child's academic career. If you've been wondering how to help your child improve their English skills but have found your search for an "English tutor near me" to be unfruitful, online tutoring is an excellent choice whether your child is in elementary school or college.

Working directly with an English tutor in an online learning environment affords your child all of the benefits associated with traditional tutoring while giving you the scheduling and location flexibility so desperately needed in today's world. If you think your child would benefit by working one-to-one with an English tutor, then consider reaching out to Varsity Tutors. We'd love to help you connect with the right English tutor for your child's needs and get them started on the road to English mastery. We look forward to hearing from you soon.