| If your kids are high school age or ready to work on SAT math or AP Calculus then C2 is great. If your kids are younger then Sylvan Learning Center or Kumon seem to be good. It's good if the tutoring center is reasonable driving distance (i.e. near your house). If there's no C2, Sylvan Learning Center, or Kumon, then by all means call or go visit all the tutoring centers near your house and ask about the rates for in person 1 on 1 or 1 on 2 tutoring. When you find one or two that seem good, pick one and ask to pay for just a class or two. Don't prepay or commit to 20 or more hours when you don't know if your kid is even going to like the tutor. The big thing is your kid(s) should have a reasonable experience with the tutor. It's normal for kids to have a meltdown or a bad day, however the majority of days should be a positive or constructive experience (some kids would rather play computer games all day if that's an option). You want to keep it reasonably fun if possible. If your kids go to tutors for a while they will tell you if a new tutor is awful or they feel like they aren't learning anything. You've got to tell the tutors and possibly the tutoring center coordinator that you want your kid to move at the pace they can handle the material (or as fast as they can handle the material). Many tutoring centers by default will just go lock step with the grade your kid is in (default question: what are you learning at school), which defeats much of the benefit of private tutors, especially if your kid is ahead of the material they have to do at school. Of course if your kid is struggling with the current material in school starting there is great. Every kid is different and the tutors you get at these places are random. If you get a good or great result, fantastic. The tutors that work at these places are often college students or other relatively employable people, so who is tutoring at a particular place tends to change as they get jobs. Tutoring tends to be less than full time. BTW, if your kid absolutely hates studying by themselves (and just doesn't do it), using an in person tutor can be a way a way to work around that. I'm not saying that's a perfect solution, however consider it like using a JATO on a large plane. Oh, nearly forgot, if you are going out of the way to pay for a tutor, you should see if you can get your kid to work through all of Khan Academy math exercises. If your kid can handle all of Khan Academy math, then they may be ready for https://artofproblemsolving.com/alcumus which is an adaptive system using a database of competition problems. Warning, it tries to put problem solvers at the edge of what they know (it has a full range of problems, all the way from very easy basic math up to advanced number theory and combinatorics). Expect to need to Google math related words and terms used in problems as you encounter them. |