I Had a Free Assessment on My Child – And was Shocked He Was So Far Behind….

My youngest son doesn’t much like school.

He hates reading and homework is a chore – think screaming, yelling and the usual ‘THIS IS BORING’… whilst crying his little eyes out.

At his parent teacher interview (which luckily was only last week), his teacher said he was easily distracted, and avoided work he didn’t know how to do…. She has been at her wits end with him…. Unfortunately he’s a bit like me – if I don’t know how to do things – I just say stuff it all – and walk away – but kids can’t do that. They HAVE to do school. He HAS to learn how to read well. And even though I’m one of these Mums that does have the time to spend with him to help – I’m really not helping things along. Makes me feel for the Mums that have to work extra long hours AND have kids that are having trouble at school – ladies – you are rock stars.

I’ve thought about a tutor for him for quite awhile now, but I live rurally, I’m running after my other boy too, we are out of the house a few nights a week with sports etc… I just couldn’t do ANOTHER night out of the house – plus I want him to be here at home where I can supervise. So I thought I’d give online tutoring a go.

After Googling the best Aussie online tutoring companies – the only one I have ever heard of is Kip McGrath. They’ve been around for years and years – plus they offered a free assessment of my child. An assessment – with a trained tutor – one on one – fan-fricken-tastic.

And it was GREAT!!!!!!

The Actual Assessment

I made an appointment time through the website – and had to run through a few computer like things to make sure everything would work (because it is done face to face – but with activities – not Skype!). I had a few troubles at first setting things up (from my end) – but they had the wonderful Mark who patiently explained that I had the ‘mute’ button ON on my headphones… How embarrassing! He was good about it – ‘happens all the time’ he said. Hahahaha! So if you are not great at computers – they have someone to help you out.

The assessment was done at 5.30pm in the evening with the lovely Karen. She is a qualified teacher – and in fact all their tutors are!

She helped me get Flynn all set up. I didn’t know how my little fella would go sitting through an entire assessment with a lady he didn’t know on the computer – but I was involved heavily in the assessment too – and Karen was hilarious, engaging, and made it all about Flynn. He could see her the entire time as they chatted to each other about school, and his teachers, what he likes about school, what he doesn’t like, what he’s good at etc.

Then Karen started to put him through his pace on activities. The activities are structured to assess where he is up to academically. At one stage the little fella lost focus (he’s only 7), Karen saw that immediately and switched him over to a fun educational game. Whilst he was playing away, Karen explained to me that during the actual lessons, they only do 10 minute instalments of any one activity during the assessment – this is so the kids remain engaged and focused on their learning without getting bored.

The assessment involved all sorts of things:

Reading
Spelling
Filling in the blanks
Asking him what he thought certain words meant

And even though it was done on the keyboard, she even made him write a few lines she could see when I held it up to the camera!

At the end of the assessment, I sent Flynn away so I could chat to Karen about where we were up to with Flynn’s learning.

The Results of the Assessment

Well I was shocked. He is much further behind than I thought he was…… Gahhhhhh. But he is ahead in others.

He is reading at a good year one level (he’s in year two). He is behind on his reading and although he can read reasonably well, his comprehension skills were – terrible. Karen then explained that kids never learn to enjoy reading if they don’t comprehend what they are reading – which makes sense. I want him to read for enjoyment. At the moment, it is just a chore. Surprisingly his maths was really good – so that was good news.

I’ve now booked him in for a lesson per week with Karen.

Pro’s and Con’s of Online Tutoring

Okay first the advantages:

The assessment is totally FREE – love that I can have my child assessed by a professional to see where he is at – and it won’t cost me a cent!
It can be done at home (so Parent’s don’t have to leave the house!)
Every lesson is tailored to your child’s progress, strengths and weaknesses
At the end of the assessment the tutor explained all the fees if you go ahead with lessons – but she wasn’t pushy in the slightest!
If you do go ahead and do lessons, they are reasonably priced – in fact the same as if you had a tutor come to your house.

Disadvantages to Online Tutoring:

Setting up the computer if you are a computer Gumby (although they offer help for that – Hi Mark!!!)
Ummm I actually can’t think of another disadvantage…….