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Hired tutors that force thier public school views on homeschool familys!!!!

Hi everyone!

So I just really needed to get on her and vent a lil bit about what has happened to me recently.

So my daughter has always been a slow reader, to be honest she memorizes her words rather then sounding them out. I thought that maybe a hired teacher/tutor might help her. If you had not already guessed it, I am a home-school mom and always have been and proud of it! Other then being a lil slower in her reading my children are doing wonderfully with thier school work. I, like most mommas want the best for thier kids, so I decided that maybe a tutor might help where I may be unable to help her. So after looking around I found a retired teacher who was looking to start tutoring. I was paying her $15 an hour and my daughter was going 2 hours a day 3 times a week. In the beginng she seemed nice and only asked if I would ever consider just putting her in a public school. I firmly told her we are and always will be a home-school family, that my kids love using Time4Learning and I would not ever put them in where learning is so black and white. She seemed to accept this and move on to ways she might be able to help my daughter with her reading. After about 2 weeks I notice her making comments about how if my daughter was in a public school she would have other children around which would help her with learning. I tried to just ignore it, but then she brought some of the "public" schools text to the sessions and went on to say how they were much better to learn from then anything I could buy off the internet. Finally she made another comment how once her reading level was to her grade that I really should put her in a public or private school.

I can not tell you how upset I was, I immediately let her know that I would not need her services any longer and that if she plans on tutoring home-school children she needs to keep her schooling views to her self!

Has anyone else had similar exsperience?

What would you have done if this happened to you or whta did you do?

I just feel a bit betrayed by her, she knew I was a home-school mom and now my daughter wonders why we quit going to her tutor :(

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Permalink Reply by L Young on September 25, 2012 at 9:43am

I would just tell her that the tutor had very different views. Teachers tend to be very school oriented and some see home education as an insult to their profession. It doesn't look well when you build up the idea that so much specialist required - and then average parents do so much more without the training and in half the time.

May I ask how old your daughter is? Children do reach that reading readiness stage at widely varied ages ? I also happen to be a huge supporter of phonics - and did teach my son phonics - then he picked up the Oxford reading tree books and taught himself to read in what i believe most closely resembled whole language - if she picks up words by sight - that may just be her ideal learning style.

I would find her favourite subject and let her choose books on that - if you can get a child reading for pleasure - reading fluency will come. My son went through the Oxford reading tree and project x books, dipped into young adult books and now is into graphic novels. I let him choose his reading books and he has come on leaps and bounds. And I have to admit - guitar hero worked wonders too - just reading the lyrics as he sang along to the songs. Reading is reading - whether in a book, on a computer or an xbox.

I am a complete fanatic on children's books so if you send me an age and favourite subjects I can most likely suggest some lovely books - an possibly whole language or phonics suggestions as well. My website has a list of many of the free sites, as well as some info on reading instruction - but if I might recommend book to help put things in perspective it would be this one:

Anything School Can do You Can Do Better by Maire Mullarney.

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Permalink Reply by Cristina Garcia on September 27, 2012 at 4:20am

I know how you feel, I had a similar problem with my boy when he was in prep school and still couldn't read a single syllable. I was afraid, as he was turning Grade 1 that time. To be able to advance in Grade 1, he must know how to read. The school he was in was having a hard time teaching him to read, so I decided to get a personal tutor, and VOILA, after a month he learned how to read. My point is, he was studying in a normal school and still couldn't read that time, and needed to hire a tutor. IMO, it depends on the teacher's teaching technique really--though there are advantages in putting your kid in a normal school, but that's another matter.

Choose a personal tutor who loves children, patient, creative and resourceful. Hope this help. Good luck.