Award-Winning Reading Tutors

Children are taught how to read so they can extract meaning from the words they see on a page or a screen. To read effectively, a student needs to understand language and comprehend words, phrases, sentences, and complete paragraphs and passages. Reading is a fundamental skill that's required to study any other subject. It provides students with access to books, literature, letters, and even online platforms and mobile devices.

Over the last 14 or 15 years, reading scores have not changed much in students who are tested, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. With more reading tutoring, it might be possible to get these scores a bit higher nationwide. The minimal increase in scoring across the nation and across grade levels may be due to reading tutors and the understanding that reading tutoring can make a big difference for all students and in mainstream education.

Working with a reading tutor can provide so many benefits. For starters, your child can enjoy one-on-one attention from their reading tutor. That type of individualized attention can help your student work at their own pace. There won't be any pressure to keep up with classmates or to rush through assignments just so work doesn't get missed. Reading tutors can also work within the way your child learns best. Not everyone learns the same way, and in the classroom, alternative learners must often conform to the way the majority learns. Finding "reading tutors near me" may allow your student to make progress in a way and at a speed that's more comfortable.

Common Core Grade 5 Foundations Reading Skills Standards

• Phonics and Word Recognition
  • Apply grade-level appropriate phonics and word analysis skills
    • Using letter-sound correspondence, syllabication, and morphology to read multisyllabic words in and out of context accurately
• Fluency
  • Read sufficiently to support reading comprehension
    • Read text at grade-level with purpose and understanding
    • Reading poetry and prose at the appropriate grade level with proper pace, accuracy, and expression
    • Use context clues to self-correct or confirm understanding and word recognition

Reading Skills Standards

If you're wondering how reading tutoring can help, consider the standards against which students are measured today. Reading is taught earlier in school than ever, and if you were seeking "reading tutoring near me" from the time your child was in kindergarten, you wouldn't be alone.

Every grade will have its own set of benchmarks and expectations. Each state also has its own standards. However, there are generally agreed-upon benchmarks and metrics that school systems and evaluation committees are using to determine whether students are reading at a level that will set them up for success in later grades. For early readers, skills such as phonics and word recognition are important. Older school-aged children will find that it's important to increase their vocabulary in order to keep up with advanced reading assignments and tests. Word recognition, fluency, phonics, and comprehension will always be a part of how a student's reading ability and potential are measured.

Your child may be just learning how to read or trying to improve after several years of reading. A tutor can focus less on where your student should be for his or her grade and focus more on improving skills and feeling more comfortable with reading. Regardless of the grade level your child happens to be in at the current moment, the act of reading is never going to get easier. A reading tutor can help your child stay on level or even ahead of level. If a student begins to falter early in his or her academic career, it might be very difficult to catch up unless a real effort to embrace reading tutoring is made.

When it comes to meeting these standards, a good reading tutor can have a huge impact. You might find that your child not only meets these standards but even exceeds them for their grade level. Learning to read and loving to read can have a snowball effect. If a student has been struggling but then has a shift in the way the material is presented, that experience has the potential to reshape their entire academic outlook. Instead of dreading reading assignments and homework, your student could come to love reading for both school purposes and for pleasure. A reading tutor who excels at making the material more accessible and easy to comprehend can completely shift the way your student sees himself or herself as a reader.

As with anything, reading better takes practice. This is another benefit to reading tutoring. Not only can your child practice reading independently, he or she can also make an effort to share with the tutor what is being read and how it's being understood. The effort can seem more collaborative, and any problems or challenges that your child has come across while reading can be addressed and managed. With the right tools and resources at your child's disposal, solving problems should not seem impossible. Learning new words and increasing reading speed and fluency might even seem like it's coming naturally.

Reading and Test Preparation

Reading is a common skill tested on standardized exams, which differ from classroom quizzes and tests in a number of significant ways. Standardized exams are created to provide a single measure by which all students taking it can be compared objectively. From the time they first begin school, your student will face standardized tests, and reading will be on every one of them in one form or another, even if it's known by a different name.

A reading tutor can help your student prepare for any test, including those in a standardized format. Content review is an important part of preparing, but not the only part. Equally important is learning how to take the test. This includes working on time management skills, anxiety reduction practices, and careful reading of the questions and answer choices. As an example, your student's private instructor may administer a timed practice reading test and record how many problems they were able to solve. They can observe as the student answers the questions, and provide suggestions on how to speed up their pace without losing any accuracy. They can do this periodically throughout the test prep time to track their growth, providing a record your student can look at to track their improvement. This can have the added benefit of giving them greater confidence.

A few of the standardized exams that feature reading sections include:

• ISEE (Independent School Entrance Exam) – This is a test given by many independent and private schools to determine if a candidate's skills are at an appropriate level. There are four levels of this test for students currently in grades 1 through 11. The reading comprehension section requires students to read a passage and then answer questions by finding evidence within the text.
• PSAT 8/9 – The PSAT 8/9 is a test for students in grades 8 and 9 to practice for the PSAT/NMSQT (which could lead to scholarships) and eventually the SAT. The Reading section consists of passage-based questions using writings from classic or contemporary U.S. or world literature, the humanities, U.S. founding documents, and the sciences. One main focus is on finding evidence within passages to support understanding of the material.
• ACT – The ACT is a college/university entrance and placement exam taken by many high school students who intend to continue on to post-secondary education. The Reading section has questions to test their understanding of the main idea and supporting details, cause-and-effect relationships, the sequence of events, and other topics to demonstrate their reading skill level.

Student Reading Statistics

Encouraging Students to Read

If your reading tutor can encourage your child to read, you'll be working to improve those reading skills immensely. The more your child reads, the better his or her chances are of doing well in the subject and testing well when it's time. Ultimately, you want to get to the point where reading is not required, a chore, or an assignment. You want your child to read voluntarily, to enjoy the act of reading, and to select his or her own material for leisure reading. Getting your child to want to read signifies a huge step in the educational process. Reading tutoring may be able to encourage this practice. It turns reading into a habit, and one that's good for your child's brain and educational future.

Unfortunately, reading isn't a natural activity for many school-aged children in the U.S. That's not an encouraging trend for parents or educators. It demonstrates why a reading tutor can be an important part of your child's life. Even if your student is doing well with reading, you want to encourage the habit. A good tutor may be able to make it more fun, and inspire your child to pick up a book or a magazine or even read online for longer than he or she currently does.

Contact Varsity Tutors for help in finding a great tutor. There are a lot of tutoring options available today, and we have online platforms and other tools that can make tutoring convenient and fun. When you're looking for a "reading tutor near me," save yourself time and contact us at Varsity Tutors. We'll connect you.