How Do I Know Whether My Child Needs Tuition?

For many parents, signing their child up for additional tuition classes outside of school is a far-off prospect. Not all children require extra help to succeed in school, and many students are able to do well without attending regular tuition classes.

However, for the majority of students, the time they spend in school is simply not enough to help them meet the requirements of the syllabus. For these students, attending tuition is essential to ensuring that they are able to keep up with the rest of their class and attain good scores in their school and national exams.

That said, how do you know whether your child is one such student? In this article, we will list some signs to look out for and what to do if you suspect your child needs tuition.

Determining Whether Your Child Needs Tuition

There are many signs you can look out for to assess whether your child needs additional help outside of school. If they are struggling with their schoolwork, this is a good indication that they need further assistance with their learning. Some signs to look out for include:

Consistently failing or barely passing exams

Sometimes, despite putting forth all of their effort, some students simply cannot seem to do well in a particular subject. In such cases, this is generally not due to a lack of trying, but because they have weak foundations or significant gaps in their learning. This suggests that the time they spend learning the subject in school is simply not enough to meet their learning needs.

This is one of the most obvious indications that your child may need tuition. With more personalised attention and structured blocks of time to tackle their individual learning gaps, most students see an improvement in their performance after signing up for tuition classes.

Lack of discipline to study

In a classroom setting or even when studying at home without supervision, it is easy for a child to get distracted by their thoughts or surroundings. Without a teacher or authority figure to guide them, they may lose focus and fail to put in enough time to master a subject. If your child is not disciplined enough to motivate themselves to study, a good tuition teacher may be able to help them.

Having many questions about the material

In some cases, a child may understand concepts on the surface but still have many questions about the subject that their teacher may not have time to answer. If your child exhibits inquisitiveness but has no one to direct their questions to, signing them up for tuition is a great avenue to let them clarify their doubts and satisfy their curiosity outside of school.

What to Do If Your Child Needs Tuition

Once you have determined that your child could benefit from tuition, you can begin the process of searching for a good tutor and signing up your child for classes. Here are some things you can do to help your child adapt to the change.

Talk to them about it

Before imposing a huge regular time commitment on your child, it is important to talk to them about attending tuition and helping them become open to the idea. If your child is unwilling to put effort into the classes, it is unlikely that their grades will improve at all. Hence, you should make sure that they are on board with tuition classes and willing to commit to them.

Find the right tutor for your child

Different tutors and tuition centres have different approaches, and it is crucial to look for one that best suits your child’s individual learning style and needs. At Einstein, we provide 1 trial lesson to all prospective students completely free of charge, for you to observe our unique approach to teaching and how it can help your child improve.

Monitor their progress

Signing your child up for tuition will be completely useless if they do not show that they are gaining anything from the lessons. To prevent this, you can monitor their progress by helping them review what they have learned on a regular basis. This can also help them reap the full benefits of external academic assistance.

Benefits of Tuition

Needless to say, for a child who needs external help with their schoolwork, attending tuition can be a huge advantage. Some of the positive impacts that it can have on your child include:

Bridging learning gaps

Tuition classes provide an opportunity for students to ask questions, clarify doubts and review concepts that they often do not have time for in school. The smaller number of students in each session also allows them to benefit from increased attention from the tutor, who can tailor their teaching style to meet the needs of each individual student. Bridging these gaps in their learning is a major reason why the majority of students who attend tuition see improvement in their grades.

Developing important skills

Attending tuition classes also helps your child to develop important critical thinking and reasoning skills that will be highly useful in the future. Learning how to solve problems and derive answers on their own can help them become a more self-directed learner, allowing them to eventually succeed on their own without help from others. Tutors can reinforce key skills and provide additional training to students who struggle with them.

Instilling passion for the subject

Finally, some students also find that devoting more time to a particular subject helps to increase their interest and subsequently develop a passion for it. When your child understands the concepts involved and is able to apply them, they gain self-confidence and become much more likely to enjoy attending lessons. In that sense, the greatest gift that your child can derive from tuition is a lifelong love of learning.

Einstein’s Takeaway:

Although most students in Singapore attend some form of tuition outside of school, deciding whether your child should join them requires careful consideration of a few key factors. Once you have decided to sign your child up for tuition classes, matching their learning style and consistent revision are important in ensuring that they enjoy the full set of advantages that tuition can offer.

Einstein’s primary level tuition Singapore classes are taught by experienced teachers and specially designed to help your child maximise their potential. To find out more about our programme, get in touch with us today!