Does my child need a tutor? Signs to look for

Signs you can see at home

Look at the last two weeks in one subject, not the worst night. One sign on its own is normal. Three or more together in the same subject is the usual point where another packet stops helping.

These are the six signs the checklist at the bottom of this page scores:

• Homework time. One subject takes much longer than the teacher expects. If math is taking 45 minutes and reading takes 10, the problem is math, not homework.
• Avoidance. Your child stalls when that subject starts: bathroom, snack, a sudden interest in cleaning up. The other subjects do not trigger it.
• Cannot explain it the next day. You helped last night and it went fine. Tonight they cannot say why the method works or where to start. That is a missing idea, not a missing repetition.
• Parent help turns into a fight. Not once. Most nights, in that subject.
• Grades trend. Classwork and quizzes in that subject keep slipping over several weeks while other subjects hold steady.
• The teacher has already suggested extra support. That is the strongest sign on the list because the teacher sees the whole class doing the same work.

What is not a sign

Parents hire tutors for these every fall, and most of them resolve on their own within a month:

• One bad test. A single score after a sick week, a bad night, or a substitute is noise. Two low scores in a row in the same subject is a trend.
• A hard unit. Fractions in 3rd grade, long division in 4th, and early decoding in kindergarten are hard for almost everyone. Slow for three weeks is expected. Slow for the whole quarter is not.
• A new school or new teacher. It usually settles in four to six weeks. Kids adjust to new routines slower than parents expect.
• Confidence dips that lift by the weekend. Every kid says they are bad at math sometimes. Watch for it lasting.
• Your own worry. If the teacher has no concern and the work is getting done in normal time, you do not have a tutoring decision yet. You have a monitoring plan.

What can the teacher tell you?

The teacher sees your child against a whole class doing identical work. You see one child. Book a conference or send an email before you pay anyone, and ask these five questions:

• Which exact skill is stuck? Not the subject. The skill: regrouping in subtraction, blending three-letter words, reading a clock to five minutes.
• Is my child behind the class on that skill, or is the whole class finding it hard?
• What will the class do in the next four weeks? A tutor should work on that, not on last year.
• Does the school already have a tutoring program, a reading specialist, or a small-group block my child could join?
• Is this one subject, or are you seeing it across subjects? If the teacher sees it across subjects, ask the school in writing for an evaluation. That is free, it is the school's job, and it is a different process from hiring a tutor.

What to try for two weeks before hiring

If the checklist gives you two or three signs and the teacher does not see an emergency, run this for 14 days. It costs nothing and it produces the evidence you need either way.

Nickow, Oreopoulos, and Quan pooled 96 tutoring studies and found that reading tutoring tends to yield higher effect sizes in earlier grades, while math tutoring tends to yield higher effect sizes in later grades. A K-2 reading worry and a 5th grade math worry are both in the range where tutoring has evidence. Neither needs to wait for a report card.

• Day 1: email the teacher with the five questions above. Write down the exact skill they name.
• Days 1 to 14: 10 to 15 minutes of practice on that one skill, five days a week. Sit nearby, do not teach, stop while it is still going well. Use a short printable set, not a full packet.
• Every night: write down how long the subject's homework took and whether it ended calmly. Two numbers, 14 days.
• Day 7: check whether the school has a tutoring slot, a specialist, or a small-group block. If yes, take it. Nickow and colleagues found tutoring during the school day had larger impacts than after-school programs.
• Day 14: re-run the checklist below. Fewer signs and shorter homework means keep practicing. Same signs or more means hire.

When should you skip the wait and hire now?

Some situations do not get better with two more weeks of worksheets. Hire, or ask the school for its tutoring program, the same week if any of these is true:

• The teacher has already suggested extra support. Do not spend two weeks confirming what the teacher already told you.
• Four or more signs on the checklist in the same subject.
• A missed unit. Your child was out for two weeks, or changed schools mid-year, and the class has moved on. That is a hole a worksheet cannot reteach.
• Homework in that subject has been a fight most nights for a month. Every extra week teaches your child that the subject is a problem between you two.
• An advanced class is slipping. A student who is used to As and is suddenly at a C in the harder section needs help keeping pace, not a wait-and-see.
• The second half of the year. Skills stack. A 4th grader stuck on fractions in March has less than three months before the class moves on to decimals.

What to insist on if you do hire

The Robinson, Kraft, Loeb, and Schueler brief found little evidence that once-a-week tutoring is sufficient to generate meaningful gains. Ask for three or more sessions a week, at least 10 weeks, the same tutor each time, and materials that follow what the class is doing now.

The same brief explains why the old after-school model under No Child Left Behind failed: poor student attendance and a disconnect from what the student was doing in school. A tutor who never talks to the teacher is repeating that mistake at your expense. Our guide on how to find a good tutor covers the interview questions.

Run the checklist

The checklist below has the same six signs as the first section. Tick the ones that have been true for two weeks in one subject. Zero or one sign sends you to practice. Two or three sends you to the teacher and the two-week test. Four or more says start looking for a tutor now.