Sylvan Learning Center?

[sassafrass94]

Greetings! I'm asking if anyone has used Sylvan Learning Centers. I'm concerned that my daughter's school may have slightly diminished expectations. It's an Arts and Humanities focused school and I'm generally happy with the staff and her fellow students and love arts integrated education. I suspect, however that it's not too challenging academically. My sixth grader NEVER has homework and I've discovered a few "holes" in her skills. At her conferences, her teachers gush about what a pleasure she is to have in class and her grades are pretty good. (Although, in this last report, she went down in a few subjects)
Long story short... I wanted to find out how she really measured up compared to other students nationally- so we took her to Sylvan today to have her take a few tests. (They're running a special...) I think on most days I could care less what a test told me about my kid and I think schools are too bound by mandatory standardized tests and true learning and love of learning gets killed--- but that's another discussion. We do need to make sure she gets into one of the better public high schools because we can't afford private tuition. I'm concerned that maybe she's getting an academic pass because she's a well behaved mellow kid in a large classroom. (35 kids)
Has anyone else used Sylvan? It's super expensive. Tutoring is, I hear, $50/hour and they recommend 5-6 hours per week!!!! When I told them that we absolutely could not swing that, they backed down a little on the time commitment. Her education is very important to us, but we're trying really hard to get out of debt. If, however, it's money well spent... I'd like to hear about it.
Sorry about the ramble I just want someone to talk me into/ out of spending ALOT of money on something worthwhile/worthless.

Thanks!

p.s. We haven't gotten any of the test results. Those will come on Thursday.

[amcal]

I know a child with an processing disorder who does Sylvan regularly. He could not make it through school without it and has been going since early elementary school. He's now in a rigorous private catholic high school and doing well and still going to sylvan.

[Jes'sBeth]

I've been at tutor at Sylvan

It is an individualized program and the centre has a lot of resources. They work to help fill gaps for sure. I think that you do get a good program for what you pay for and I also think that you can get equally good tutoring and homework support cheaper if you look around. There are often newly trained or retired teachers who are looking to supplement their income by tutoring. If you know what you are looking for/ what gaps you want to fill in I think you can probably find someone who can help your child for somewhere in the range of $20 an hour and work just with your child than the $50 with the 3 to 1 ratio. Also, Sylvan uses a reward system to keep children motivated which works but honestly I HATE reward systems. It's nice to get trinkets for your $50/ hr but it's not necessary. If you DO use Sylvan don't let them tell you that you HAVE to do x number of hours to see results. You can totally space it out and do what you can afford. Even one or 2 hrs a week would be a benefit your child and you might be able to afford that.

It's hard to hear that there are gaps in your child's understanding. Every child, even the best student on the planet, will learn one area faster/ better than another and thus, we ALL have gaps! It's human nature. For me, subtraction is hard. I can do it but it takes me more time. I can add, divide and multiply faster than I can subtract. So be it. I'm still a totally capable adult Focus on the areas you see that really do need help.

[sassafrass94]

I'm a little wary of their reward system, too. My daughter lives for that kind of system, though. She loves when we stay at a hotel or go to an amusement park that has the games of chance (or skill) that give out tickets that can be exchanged for some little prize. No problem motivating her to spend her entire allowance on that! hahaha My problem is that part of what I would really like to see is a genuine internal drive to learn. I'm not sure you can tutor that...I want her to be motivated by curiosity or a desire to improve a skill. I know that may be asking a bit... but a Mom can be an idealist, right? This whole pre-teen apathy is really getting me down!
The other challenge is that she isn't really getting homework that she would need help with. Her teacher said that anything that she would be able to send home would just be busywork and she doesn't believe in that. I commend her for that- I don't want my child's time wasted, either. I'm afraid that she won't develop time management and study skills before high school, though. (Perhaps I'm projecting my own challenges a wee bit )
Regarding her gaps... I realize we all have gaps. Boy do I have my own! I just want them to be recognized and worked on, you know? I want her to have a better time learning the upper-level stuff. I don't want her to be frustrated doing algebra because she doesn't have her multiplication facts down. I believe that learning is organic and not always linear... I guess I'm worried that she may feel frustrated or lose confidence later because we let something slide a little too long.

Thanks so much for the posts! I really appreciate the advice!

[Jes'sBeth]

I did NOT like administering the reward thing. As a tutor you are supposed to give out 10 tokens per hour to each child. You are not really supposed to hold back unless you really have a difficult child. So really, what's the point of the system? IMO it's just bribery. I don't like that. I didn't ever have a student at Sylvan who was REALLY motivated by the token thing, they were all great kids who appreciated getting a bit of extra help. It's hard to act up when the teacher/ tutor is RIGHT IN FRONT of you the whole time!

I have the same philosophy as your child's teacher. I think gr 6 students probably have enough time working on school work in school time. I'm pretty tired after a full day of work and would hate it if I had to bring home an hour or more of work every day after working all day let alone asking that of children you know?

At the same time, I absolutely hear your concern for your daughter and time management skills as well as needing to make sure that she understands enough to do well in future classes. As much as I disagree with the token system and I think Sylvan is pretty structured, I also think we worked well with the students and I definately saw growth in the children I worked with. They have a lot of great resources there and it's well run. The tutors are all qualified teachers and everyone that I worked with cared a great deal for the students that they were working with. Any time your child spends there or with another tutor will be likely result in greater understanding. More so if your child feels good about going there too.

We do what we can to help our kids to the best of our abilities right?!

[LauraN]

My thought on this is that internal motivation and love of learning come from having the time and support to pursue your true interests. Rather than try to fill in gaps that you've decided on, why not support your child in pursuing an interest of her choice?

I know I learned far more from the internship at a local newspaper that I went after than from the mock UN class my mother pushed me into because she thought it would help me fill some gaps.

[LilyGrace]

The child I tutor went to Sylvan for 2 years and was still failing math when we started together about 6 months ago (she's at an A/B+ now, I'm so proud of her! . Now that you write it out, I am shocked at the amount of money her parents poured into that system. They are willing to do everything possible to help her so I'm betting they went for the full range of services. I honestly felt bad about what they were paying me and now I see why they wouldn't accept my offer of less.

Find a tutor to work one on one with your daughter. If they're anything decent they'll be able to identify the holes easily with a few games and watching her, and then move from there to develop a program for her.

[PrincessDoll]

Sylvan has an online program where the tutor and student meet in a virtual classroom and speak via the computer. It is called Educate Online. I understand it to be a more affordable option where your daughter can be tutored from the comfort of her own home. Perhaps that may work for your family's financial needs?

[Bird Girl]

There's a large group of parents who do something called 'afterschooling,' where parents take charge of their child's education and offer homeschooling work at home. For a sixth-grader, I would be perfectly comfortable assigning up to an hour of afterschool work, plus music lession practice, especially if she has no homework assigned from the school. You don't have to pay a company to afterschool your child; you can do the research and assign work yourself. Many homeschooling books or fora have information that can be applied to afterschooling.

[Linda on the move]

If math is the issue, check and see if you have a Mathnasium near you. It is a chain of math tutor centers. My DD who homeschools goes there twice a week for an hour at a time and we are very pleased. We pay by the month, not the hour, and our rate is $125 per month (I think this differs from city to city, though).

They test to figure where the gaps are, then they work on those skills, then they test again. There are some rewards (you get a hole punch for each page completed, then you save up cards of punches and trade them in for things). You have to do a lot of math before you get something. It's fun, but not over the top.