The Impact of After-School Tutoring on Elementary Students

Elementary students are at a critical stage in their academic journey, laying the foundation for future learning. However, many face challenges in the classroom that hinder their progress. After-school tutoring offers a powerful solution to enhance their educational experience and and have a positive impact overall success for elementary students.

Boost grades

After-school tutoring is a fantastic way to improve students' grades. Elementary school students are often highly motivated by the desire to seek parental or caregiver approval through good grades.

However, if they aren't receiving the support they need in the classroom or lack a strong foundation, they may struggle to reach their academic goals.

After-school tutoring gives K-6 students personalized learning support that can help them reach a deeper understanding of core concepts. As a result, they'll be more successful on assignments, tests, and projects.

A child who has regular tutoring sessions with a skilled tutor may have deeper-level comprehension of subject area content.

Learn and hone valuable skills

Being a successful student is about far more than just absorbing academics. Strong students are also able to showcase effective skills in other areas, including:

• Study skills
• Active listening skills
• Collaboration skills
• Organization skills
• Self-regulation skills

Unfortunately, in many classrooms students aren't taught how to display and utilize these skills. Some teachers may not know how to teach those vital skills. Others may have to focus more on academics so that they can fit in all necessary instruction during the course of a school year.

 Even when teachers are able to provide vital scaffolding for those skills, some students may be distracted by peer interactions, classroom assignments, or other things going on around them.

After-school tutoring can help students build those skills in a low-pressure, supportive environment. They'll be able to work one-on-one with a tutor who can identify areas of improvement or areas in which the student might need support.

In addition, students won't have peers or other activities to distract them, so they can focus more easily on the skills they most need to build. As a result, they will often showcase more overall development in those skills, which they can then take to the classroom.

Build self-confidence

Elementary students are forming their self-confidence. In many cases, they may find that confidence in themselves dipping heavily due to challenges in the classroom.

Students who struggle to understand the material, for example, may use negative self-talk with themselves as they attempt to build those essential skills.

After-school tutoring, on the other hand, provides a safe, supportive, and positive environment where the tutor can collaborate closely with the student to build self-confidence.

With TutorMe, for example, each tutor will work directly, one-on-one with the student, which means the tutor will devote all their attention to providing vital support that can help bolster the student's self-confidence.

In general, students also will feel more comfortable making mistakes with their tutors than with their teachers. Tutoring takes off the pressure often present in the classroom environment, where students may fear the opinions of their peers if they have a question or make a mistake.

Making mistakes and asking questions, however, is a critical part of the learning process and essential to building student confidence in their abilities. By working with a tutor, students can build that confidence and become more comfortable with their ability to work with that specific material.

Transform students' attitude toward school

Elementary school students develop an attitude toward school that will often stick with them throughout their academic careers. For some students, especially those struggling in the classroom, that can become an extremely negative opinion.

After-school tutoring can help cultivate a positive and enthusiastic attitude about school and learning in general. Tutors can help foster a positive appreciation for the skills developed through that learning process.

In addition, tutors are in the ideal position to make learning personal, engaging, and fun. For example, tutors can:

• Personalize instruction to students' interests. Tutors have the opportunity to use examples, characters, and scenarios that come from the things that interest students most.
• Gear learning toward students' existing levels. In many classrooms, teachers cannot teach directly to the level of each student, which can lead to frustration in students who are well ahead or well behind the curve.
• Integrate games, quizzes, and fun into the learning process so students can connect more deeply with the material.
• Tutors can present material according to students' unique learning styles, whether that means more active learning or tailoring instruction to a student's specific needs.

Close learning and opportunity gaps

Even post-pandemic, many educators struggle to close learning and opportunity gaps for all students.

Some schools have still had to close because of the pandemic. Others have students who have experienced considerable disruption that has interfered with their overall academic success. Students may end up out of school for days or weeks due to illness.

Furthermore, disparities in education that existed prior to the pandemic, including challenges for minority and low-income students, became increasingly evident over the course of the pandemic—and those gaps have not been closed.

After-school tutoring provides students with expert academic support that's available outside of school hours--and with TutorMe, that's 24/7/365 access. Students can use those opportunities to catch up, stay on track, or get ahead thanks to tailored learning support from expert tutors.

Tutoring programs are an extremely effective way to provide students with more learning opportunities, whether that means scaffolding the non-academic skills students may need for school success or closing opportunity and learning gaps.

Do you want to make the most of your students' learning potential? Join Pear Deck Tutor's (formerly, TutorMe) network of hundreds of K-12 schools nationwide and empower your students to succeed with equitable access to online tutoring.