Middle School Tutoring and School Help

Resources for Tutoring Middle Schoolers

Private Tutors

Private tutors provide in-person or online one-on-one instruction in various educational subjects. This type of instruction is fashioned to a student's particular needs and varies depending on the tutor's previous experience. If you hire a private tutor, it's a good idea to set up a face-to-face or phone interview to assess how well his or her personality and previous experience fits with your middle schooler's needs. You might also consider asking a family member or friend to tutor your child. If you're looking for a professional tutor, consider asking your son or daughter's teacher for a recommendation.

Community Tutoring

Your child's school, your local public library or a local community organization may offer an after-school tutoring or mentor program free of charge. Your son or daughter might benefit from doing his or her homework or working on extra-credit school projects under the supervision of a peer tutor or a qualified community member 2-3 times a week.

Some schools' after-school programs allow students in the same class to work on homework assignments in small groups or recommend older students to serve as tutor-mentors. If you elect this option, ask if certified educators are on-hand to answer questions beyond the scope of a tutor's knowledge.

Tutoring Centers

Tutoring centers offer a variety of instruction in individual or small group settings. Some centers offer a tutor certification process and feature only certified tutors; centers that don't certify usually have a standard training process for tutors. When you enroll your student at a tutoring center, the center will typically test your child in a variety of academic subjects to assess his or her skill level and locate a well-suited learning methodology.

A downside of this option is that you may not be able to choose who tutors your child. Evaluate whether or not the center's learning theories suit your child's needs by reading the center's available literature. You may also want to inquire about the tutor-to-student ratio, which varies from center to center.

Home Support

Consider tutoring your young adolescent at home. You can find many free learning resources, such as worksheets and quizzes, age-specific games and practice exercises on educational websites. You can also find homeschool curricula and lesson plans online, which may offer new approaches for supporting your child with the topic(s) he or she most struggles with.

If you're not sure whether your child is a visual, auditory or kinesthetic learner, Scholastic.com provides a free, diagnostic test to determine this information. Knowing what type of learner your child is may help you to evaluate what types of activities will most suit his or her natural capacity to learn.