Homework Coaching FAQ'S
 

Our experienced, patient, approachable tutors can adapt their teaching styles to fit the needs of students with time-management struggles, language-based learning disabilities or other such difficulties. Our tutors help their students to appreciate the long-term advantages of developing good communication skills and habits. We pride ourselves on the combination of enthusiasm for their subject, excellence in academic achievement and passion for teaching that characterizes Lexington Tutoring, LLC. All of our tutors have outstanding backgrounds, college degrees, impressive transcripts, proven expertise in their respective areas of study and recent CORIs and SORIs. Some are in the midst of obtaining advanced degrees or already possess their M.A.s or Ph.D.s. Most speak two or more languages, and all have a love of teaching and a respect for your child’s unique learning needs.

We are not a franchise. We are a small local company. We serve all of the greater Boston area, Metro West and Metro North and are familiar with the curriculum of the private and public schools in eastern Massachusetts.

This recent New York Times review of two new books about developing talent and genius in students provides an interesting discussion of how mentorship by an accomplished, successful professional can give a high school student a vision of his/her future self and a glimpse of an enchanted circle the student might someday join.

We help students pinpoint their problem areas and understand how to improve them. Our students then begin to understand their own process and feel more confident about approaching their own work. In addition to remedial tutoring, we offer enrichment tutoring in almost all high school and many college subjects.

What subjects do you offer?

We offer almost all elementary, middle school, high school and college subjects, English as a second Language, French, Russian, Spanish, test prep for the GED, the MCAS, the SAT, the SAT subject tests, and the LSAT, and college and law school application support. In addition, we provide computer skills training at every level.

How does homework coaching work?

Typically, your tutor will meet with your student for two or three weekday after-school sessions of somewhere between one and three hours in length to work together on whatever homework is due. The method by which they work will be determined as the tutor assesses your student’s present skills and time management strategies. The tutor provides an emailed end-of-the-week report at the completion of each week, or, upon parental request, a post-session report after each session.

Following these sessions, after completing any remaining homework, your tutor may ask your son/daughter to email copies of the completed homework.

On the weekdays when they are not scheduled to meet, for each class upon which they are focusing in their sessions, your tutor may ask you son or daughter to phone him/her and what was covered in classes that day, what assignments were given, what long range assignments were discussed and what handouts were distributed. Then, if possible, your student might be asked to email to his/her tutor scans of any handouts (especially assignment sheets for major assignments) and the website addresses for any major assignments his/her teachers have posted online. These are all strategies we use, some or all of which might be ones you’d like us to deploy in working with your son or daughter.

My son/daughter has difficulty keeping track of assignment and project due dates. What do you recommend?

Many of our students have found that slip-ups in tracking assignments and projects can present a real obstacle to their success. Our homework coaches have found that Google Calendar-- a creative, unique, free online time-management tool--can help ameliorate this problem. Students generally love technology, and use mobile phones frequently to text message or email friends. Our system takes advantage of this, and allows students to text message or email their assignments during the day to their Calendar for future input and prioritization later that evening. Each evening, students can view that evening’s tasks, track long-term assignments, plan activities, and move uncompleted assignments to the following day. Our tutors (and our students’ parents) also have access to the Calendar, and can facilitate the system or make notes and suggestions where appropriate.

My son/daughter has difficulty taking notes in information-intensive classes like history and chemistry. What do you recommend?

One of our tutors, Mike Bace, is also an attorney with a small law practice. Mike uses a Pulse Smartpen in his practice and is currently exploring teaching his high school and college students to use this pen for their note-taking. The pen, which is PC and MAC compatible, records and links audio to students' notes. Although we've just started using this device with our students, our experience thus far is that it is extremely helpful to high-achieving high school students and college students, including students with learning disabilities.

Do I need to do homework on my own if I have a homework coach?

You will get the most out of your coaching sessions if you bring all of your textbooks to sessions, read the appropriate chapters, keep careful track of long and short-range assignments and make a good faith effort to accomplish some of your homework on your own, saving the most difficult assignments for your work with your coach.

What support do you offer in addition to face-to-face sessions?

We offer the following optional support services. We prorate whichever services you choose at $50 per hour and itemize them on your weekly invoice.

• In order to foster consistency and responsibility, we provide brief, daily support, direction and feedback to our school-age students via telephone and email (copied to their parents) if you so request. These homework check-ins can be very helpful to students who have difficulty with executive functions.
• We are available to email our students’ teachers for clarification of assignments, feedback on student progress, information on make-up work owed, etc.
• We offer a weekly report detailing the current work, noting progress achieved and discussing areas of concern.
• Please note that we invoice time spent on email and telephone communications from parents to tutors and from tutors to parents as support services.
• Some of our students find using our customized learning games very helpful. These are based on our student’s notes and text material and supplemented by some fact-checking and our own editing.

We are also available to attend parent-teacher conferences. Attendance at conferences within 8 miles of your tutor’s location is invoiced at $75 per hour.

Please send us the email addresses, web site addresses, names and phone numbers of your student’s teachers so that, if you would like us to do so, we can establish regular communication with his/her teachers to maximize your results.

What special materials, texts or software should we purchase for optimum results?

If your student has received CD’s of any of his/her textbooks this year, please ask him/her to bring the CD’s to our sessions. He/she should also bring an up-to-date assignment book and any textbooks needed for our work that day.