We can ask “What age is best to start studies?” But this question probably has no answer. You can suppose it to be as early as possible or in another context you can take it to be the best whenever it is possible or viable without making it further late. You can suppose it is better late than never.
Similarly the answer to the question – What age is best to get a home tutor? can have similarly implicated answers. You can take it as early as possible or you can take it as soon as you get the opportunity or viability available with you. And in the second case, you would not ask when it is better as you are not having a choice.
The role a home tutor plays at different ages is not essentially the same. For example, the purpose of a home tutor for a nursery or kindergarten student and a senior school student is not the same. Though apparently it may appear that both are playing a crucial role and contributing to the academic and career development of the student, there are still a lot of differences.
So the question – What age is best to get a home tutor? Can be converted into a smarter one like – What are the roles of a home tutor at different ages of the student? If you miss the home tutor at a certain age then there is most likely a chance that you will miss the benefits also to a considerable extent.
Like, if you fail to get a home tutor during your high school days then there are chances that you may miss the chances to clear some competitive exams which would have led you to the career of a doctor or an engineer or something of that sort. So if you have got a home tutor during your junior school days then that perhaps did not directly help much to secure the rank in the competitive exams, and also if you get a home tutor for your university classes then that also is not expected to contribute much to help you secure a rank in the competitive exams either.
A home tutor has got a very specific and decisive role to play in the different ages and stages of the academic journey of a student. We are not in a position to deny or devalue the role at any particular age and stage with respect to another stage and age. That is why I said that as early as possible or if not viable then as soon as viable.
Playing school and kindergarten ages of a student is one of the most crucial growth phases of his general life as well as academic life. From brain and body integration by motor-neuron coordination to cognitive faculties development, they all contribute to his general as well as academic life to such an extent that if one misses this stage of development then there remains a good chance that he will miss a lot throughout his whole life.
Parents do play the most important part for the development of their child at this age. But there remain two problems. One is that the parents may not have much time to dedicatedly use that for this purpose. Though they need to find some time at least however busy they are, still you cannot assure that time invested will be their best time or at least quality time enough. Children of this stage need time that is very high quality and highly dedicated to their purpose.
Even if parents can find some high quality time for their child, then also another problem is there that is more critical than the time issue. I am saying it as more critical because the time issue is more easily solvable than this issue. And this issue is about training and knowledge. You must have heard teachers are having training and certifications for kindergarten teaching. There is a lot to know about a child and their growth factors at this stage. There are many processes and theories. Parents even with any amount of education cannot be expected to have this kindergarten knowledge and expertise unless they train themselves specifically for that. But a professional home tutor is able to perform at this level because they by their training and/or experience have developed the necessary knowledge and expertise.
Most children nowadays attend the play school in their neighborhood at a quite early age as 3 years or even lesser. That definitely helps a lot in their development of physical, mental and social skills. Still there remains a small problem.
In any play school usually a class contains something around 20 to 30 children. The teachers there try hard to give the best care tutoring but there remains an invisible gap. Every child has many things in common but you can expect there can be a few more things that can be totally unique to a particular child. It is this side of uniqueness that often remains unexplored or under-nurtured in the community environment of the play school. It is this point where a home tutor can become most functional and relevant at this stage and age of the child and his education.
Population is ever growing and competition is ever rising. In this condition, job and career is becoming a tougher challenge for all children of today. It will get even tougher with progressing time. This scenario makes it more useful and relevant to explore and nurture any possible talent or latent skill present in your child in the early days of his or her playschool. If something of that sort can be discovered then struggling and surviving this harshly competitive world may become a little easier for your child.
Any childhood talent nurturing can make a big difference in his or her life as they can turn out one of the best in that domain or skill. And there is one famous proverb “There is always room at the top”.
But next the question arises how parents can help the child nurture his talents. Though discovery remains one of the main tasks of a good parent, nurturing the same talent can often be beyond the knowledge and skill levels of the parents. In such cases, home tutors are the best possible answer. In good schools though there are resources and arrangements for helping a child grow but as the number of children at a time is quite high so it may not be much effective.
A suitable home tutor can easily help in such a situation. Just you need to get one who can also teach that talent discipline. Other than teaching skills on that talent, he or she should also have training and skills on montessori level teaching and primary students teaching. Thus on one hand he can help your child grow in all the general aspects and also nurture his special talent.
This learning stage starts with the pre-school stage and extends to the primary school stage. This is the period that the students learn the most general aspects and activities of life. Stress on subject domains and career are usually to keep low in this stage (preferably nil). As the child progresses to secondary school, stress on subject domains is to increase. But career stresses should be kept for high school stages preferably.
The necessity of a home tutor increases as the child moves to the secondary school stage from primary, kindergarten and preschool stage. In the early stages the home tutor is more optional than at this stage. In those early stages parents often participate with their child’s growth and development, if they can find enough time.
In secondary school stages, the load of subject disciplines keeps increasing sharply. Standard schools have got many subjects in their syllabus. From Mathematics and Science to Arts, Languages and Social Sciences, there can be even more. With progressing class, the depth and complexity of all these subject domains keep increasing.
A student usually has two responsibilities regarding these subjects. He needs to learn them well and also he needs to score well on them. Many will say that good learning itself can assure good scoring. But that is always not the case. Because learning is input and scoring is output. And for better output there should be better presentation skills as well. Good learning and poor presentation can be a big hindrance to better scoring. This can create a major problem in the future career development process of the child.
Home tutor becomes almost essential in this stage of a child’s academic development. Many parents have time and will to help their child in their studies but there can arise another problem. There are so many subject disciplines in the school syllabus, and most of the parents may not be properly equipped with enough knowledge and skill to teach all these subjects.
Provisions of even better quality teaching can be easily accessed through a suitable home tutor. They are professionals of teaching with years of experience. At junior secondary stages, usually a single home tutor can handle all the subjects alone. But at senior secondary classes, subject splits are important. The same tutor usually cannot deliver the same quality of teaching from Natural Sciences to Languages and Social Sciences.
There are many schools that take very good quality classes by very highly trained and experienced teachers. Most international schools and many urban schools have very good quality teachers in their teachers’ rooms. But the problem is elsewhere. However good a teacher can be, providing best quality personal attention to a child in a class of say 30 to 50 students is not easy to achieve and perhaps not possible.
There can be a few very intelligent or gifted children who will not need such personal level care and teaching but most children do. Pressure of performance and amount of activities keep increasing with progressing class. This can create enough stress on a child and easing at that point is the most important role of a home tutor. Thus a home tutor can contribute to his learning, scoring and career development.
High schools are the stages where the career gets its first step directly. This first step towards one’s career can become the most important decisive factor for the whole of the future career and professional life. From choosing the right subjects to scoring the best in exams, cracking the competitive exams or college entrances, these years are fully packed with actions. Proper guidance is precious at this juncture of life.
Parents will be there for physical and mental wellbeing, will power and inspiration. But after that a student would also need some professional guidance on his or her subjects of study and wisely choosing and availing career options.
At this stage many students will face his or her worst career and academic pressure and stress. A little mistake can change and destroy a lifelong professional track and success. And students are prone to mistakes at this stage, perhaps more than any other stage of life. A good home tutor can be of great help at this stage.
He can help in studies, spot the students strong points as well as weak points and help him or her to get the best performance in the board exams as well as other career competitive exams.
Studies in the higher secondary sections are much different than those in the secondary schools. Here the streams are divided and students need to choose his or her favorite stream on which to develop the future career. Subjects have much higher depth and difficulty level at this stage of study. Many students can find it considerably hard to face that difficulty level all alone. Schools do help but as I said before, with a class of so many students, a teacher usually has very little scope to help each individual student.
Home tutors of respective subjects can make the studies less difficult and more enjoyable for the student. Enjoying one’s subject is very important to learn and excel in it. Almost every subject one will be learning at this stage will have their presence and applications in the future career of the student. So better learning at this stage can indirectly facilitate better professional performances in future.
We will discuss subject-wise study guidance and tips useful for the students and home tutors in many future articles to come in this KridhaTutor Blog section. For example there are a lot of things to discuss about the study process for STEM subjects at this level (STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) There can be discussions on how to prepare for competitive exams and how to cope up with all the relevant stress and pressure. Lots of things can be discussed which is not anyhow possible within one blog. There are already a few related blogs here on KridhaTutor Blogs. More will be coming in future. I also have plans to write ebooks on many such topics for even more detailed and in-depth discussions.
Please keep in touch and keep visiting and reading KridhaTutor Blogs for many forthcoming blog articles on this and other topics.
Once a student crosses his higher secondary schools, then comes the college days. The college can be an engineering college, or a medical college or a subject graduation degree college. All colleges are supposed to award a graduation degree in the relevant field.
In many cases, students (and also parents) believe that there is no role left to play for a home tutor at this level of education. The student became senior and can handle all issues regarding studies and career all by himself. Then there are the faculties of the college to help. But usually the faculty of college is under more pressure and busy to finish the course syllabus within the semester. His class can be packed with more than 50 students, sometimes it can even be more than 100. Do you think he will be anyhow able to provide any kind of personal level guidance or help to this type of student count?
Many students may not need any personal level help and guidance and can handle all by themselves. But not all. There are students who are really under extreme need for expert help on this crossroads of career. There are students who remain very depressed, frustrated or even terrorised in this stage of studies. A lot of psychological problems can crop up at this stage. A lot of professional problems also can crop up at this level. And both kinds of problems can create serious impacts to the whole professional career.
All these issues can be targeted through the option of an expert home tutor (or a coaching tutor as in most cases). Parents can be concerned but usually may not be properly trained and equipped to help their child in this stage. They can help them by providing them with a good home tutor (or coaching tutor). Though the tutor will usually not be able to solve each and every problem, still he can help to ease a lot of them. And thus the tutor can create a lifelong career impact on the students life (both professional and personal because usually many of the variables of the personal life depend on the financial structure and financial structure depends mainly on the professional life of the student).
Students do not only study. Neither should they be doing so. So what can or will they do when they are not studying?
Wasting time for students can be one of the worst habits he may be having. Parents in many cases remain perplexed pondering how to make their child understand not to waste time and use them for constructive purposes.
Extra-curricular activities are such a constructive purpose. It can be music, painting, photography, any sports or games and so on. Many people will be very skeptical about the necessity and utility of a good extra-curricular activity. Even students also can fail to perceive or understand the need for such a thing in life. Even many students can be having one or some but still fail to realise the exact value of that in their life.
Now if someone is willing to take up an extracurricular activity as a hobby or passion, then naturally the question of learning it arises in most of the cases. There can be a lot of options for learning such an activity. One can learn from friends, from the internet (Youtube videos) or something of that sort. But I will suggest a home tutor (or maybe a coaching tutor). If you need to learn something then better learn it well.
I will discuss more on extra-curricular activities and hobbies in other forthcoming blog articles. There will be separate articles on some of the activities like music or painting or games like chess. Also I will discuss the psychological and educational value of such activities in relevant blog articles. Please stay in touch with KridhaTutor Blogs for reading more.
Thus we see the role and importance of home tutor at different levels of academic growth of a student. By home tutor, we can understand one-to-one student home tutor class sessions or also coaching tutorial class sessions. It is obvious that in most cases one-to-one sessions are more effective, especially in junior classes. Either way, a home tuition session can contribute a lot to the development of the student.