Tutors
A parent, other family member, friend, high school or college student, teacher, or professional tutor may be a good tutor for a child with special needs. Anyone who understands how your child learns and the material that he needs to learn can be a tutor. It sounds simple, but finding a good tutor can be tricky.
Cautions
Some well-meaning tutors may feel sorry for a child with special needs. Empathy is one thing, but pity on the part of a tutor will result in your child learning excuses for why he cannot do something, instead of making progress to his fullest ability.
Other tutors may fully understand how the special needs of your child affects his learning. They may not, however, understand what your child's peers are learning or the steps in learning to get to that material.
For example, a tutor may well understand that some students with learning disabilities seem to “have” a concept one day and seem to have never seen the material the next day. That same tutor, however, may not have a clear concept of the methods used to teach multiplication to third graders and the level of difficulty presented in that grade.
Alert
When talking to a prospective tutor for your child, discuss what will be covered. Will the tutor follow your child's textbook, or will he be using other, similar materials? Using the child's textbook can be helpful as long as the tutor makes sure that your child understands the concepts but does his own work.
Benefits
Regardless of the considerations in getting a tutor, they can offer many benefits. Sometimes your child may need to hear his school subjects explained in a different way or from someone other than a family member.
Some families find that tutoring is beneficial during the summer months. Children have the opportunity to catch up on skills when they don't have to be concerned about homework.
