Pros and Cons of Grinds
Many of the parents who come to me are experiencing grinds for the first time. In evaluating whether to go ahead with grinds you should consider the following factors.
First and foremost I would say that it is important to establish that your child actually wants help. There are many reasons a child would struggle in maths. It could be because of missing school due to illness, or because the student is shy or thinks in a way not compatible with the teacher’s style. Sometimes a student develops anxiety over some area in maths which then slowly grows to engulf their whole perception of the subject. These are all fixable problems and can be remedied with time and patience, in the one-to-one environment of a grind. As long as the student wants to improve and accepts that it’s necessary to work steadily towards the goal of becoming confident and secure in the subject.
In the majority of cases, I find that students do want to learn and are prepared to put in the work. These students will always improve. Occasionally, I get students who are reluctant to put the work in. Some of these students I can turn around, and some I can’t. My policy is to let parents know if I feel that students are not putting enough work in. I usually give a period of about 5 or 6 classes before I get a feel for how things are going.
If your son or daughter is heavily involved in sports, try if possible to book a time of the week when they are in a rested state, as tiredness and recovery from high-intensity sporting activities can adversely impact the effectiveness of grinds.
The major advantage of grinds is that I can tailor the lessons to the student’s ability and personality. If I see that the student requires slow delivery of information I will do that. If I see that the student is missing vital pre-algebra skills, I will deal with that, something a secondary teacher rarely has the time to attend to. Sometimes, I see that the student isn’t able to deal with complex word problems. I will patiently go through many examples of such problems and show them a common system of breaking down these questions into manageable chunks that they can easily process.
One very effective way of giving the student confidence is tackling head-on the topic the student fears most. Once they see that they can quickly get on top of the topic in one or two classes, they become much more positive in their outlook.
Algebra is another area that affects some students more than others. Algebra requires lots of practice to be able to internalise all the various techniques. Because of this, I like to do the whole algebra course together, rather than in a sporadic manner. In this way, students don’t get the chance to forget the basic concepts that they need to know to be able to tackle the more advanced algebra.
Homework
I generally give homework, not excessive and just enough to refresh the concepts that have been learnt in the preceding class. It is very important that this homework is done within a day of the class. Some students decide to wait until just before the next class to do the homework, by which time they have forgotten much of what they learnt the previous week. If they do the homework within a day of the class, not only will they remember much more, but this information will also stay with them until the next class, by which time we will be able to refresh the students’ memory again with a quick revision. In this way, concepts get set in the student’s long-term memory.
If you are interested in some maths tutoring call me at 085 1030198 or fill in my online booking form and I will be in touch