As we approach a full year of online or hybrid learning, parents are more concerned about whether their child is progressing in schools as expected. Perhaps motivated by learning loss or a child struggling academically, parents may consider tutoring. Finding a tutor for a child involves taking a step back and evaluating the student鈥檚 learning landscape.

Talking with a child鈥檚 teacher is a starting point for determining whether a tutor is necessary. There are a variety of things to consider: grade level curriculum, organizational skills, attentiveness, study habits and just general life activities. Classroom success ebbs and flows with each student鈥檚 situation, especially now with so many schedules disrupted. If it is determined a tutor would be beneficial, remember they are a member of the larger educational team. A tutor will usually want a continuing dialogue with parents because, as the parent, you are the link for sharing information between teacher and tutor.

What tutors can address are specific goals and target outcomes. Choosing a tutor is like choosing a school, 鈥淲hat would be a good fit for the child and meet our expectations?鈥� Once the learning objective is defined, finding a tutor with a particular skill or strength, and teaching style compatible with the student鈥檚 learning style is important. If the goal is to build better study habits or processing skills, an executive functioning focused tutor might be a better fit than a traditional subject matter tutor.

When choosing a tutor, much can be learned in a phone interview, but it can be a trial-and-error process to find the best match. It can take time for rapport to be established and the student to become comfortable with the tutor. Tutoring is not an instant fix 鈥� it takes time and patience to build the relationship and to build skills and confidence. Parents need to remain involved in their child鈥檚 progress 鈥� a tutor never replaces that connection.

A few sites to get more ideas about choosing a tutor:

• (Reading Rockets)
• (Parents.com)
• (Read and Spell Blog)

Resources for finding a tutor:

• (U.S. News & World Report)

An explanation of what it means to be highly sensitive, as well as a summary of the many pros and some cons of being a HSP.

Our social media community and the 优蜜视频 staff weighed in on their favorite movies featuring gifted children and young adults.

We asked our community what websites for gifted kids they recommend. Here are ten of the top suggestions. Tell us what you’d add!

We had fun celebrating National Scavenger Hunt Day! Learn about the wide-ranging benefits of scavenger hunts, from fun to educational, in today’s blog post.

This fall, we announced the 2017 Caroline D. Bradley Scholars! We are excited to welcome them to the 优蜜视频 community.

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Roald Dahl鈥檚 Matilda is a precocious young girl who can teach the world a lot about gifted kids. Here are 12 lessons from the novel.

Stories of ten child activists from around the world who fought for what they believed in, to inspire children and adults alike.

There is a need for new strategies in identifying gifted students of diverse cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds to ensure that we are meeting the needs of all gifted children.

Because overexcitabilities are often talked about as though they are problems to solve, we wanted to highlight some of the more delightful elements of overexcitabilities in gifted children and adults.

Because so many things come naturally to the gifted child, highly able students often do not learn how to study until it is too late. Mark provides some tips for helping gifted students develop study habits.

Like this post? to receive more stories, information, and resources about gifted youth straight to your inbox.

Our social media community and the 优蜜视频 staff weighed in on their favorite movies featuring gifted children and young adults.

Gifted children love to learn and explore new things. This list of podcasts for gifted learners provides some informational and fun resources for curious minds.

Because overexcitabilities are often talked about as though they are problems to solve, we wanted to highlight some of the more delightful elements of overexcitabilities in gifted children and adults.

There is a need for new strategies in identifying gifted students of diverse cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds to ensure that we are meeting the needs of all gifted children.

Guest blogger Lisa Hartwig, mother gifted children, explores if disrespectful behavior is the result of misunderstood gifted students.

What can Gilmore Girls teach us about the different ways giftedness manifests in adolescents? An 优蜜视频 staffer and long-time Gilmore fan explores.

优蜜视频 parent and Academy instructor Linnea Pyne discussed Mindfulness as a tool used to address a variety of the needs of gifted children.

The gifted brain is a unique place. We examine some common brain quirks of the gifted and how we can help address them to better serve gifted children.

Because so many things come naturally to the gifted child, highly able students often do not learn how to study until it is too late. Mark provides some tips for helping gifted students develop study habits.

This year, 优蜜视频 welcomed 30 new Caroline D. Bradley Scholars to our community. Scholars were chosen from a pool of hundreds of applicants and 49 finalists.

Like this post? to receive more stories, information, and resources about gifted youth straight to your inbox.

Mark Erlandson, the parent of a gifted student who presently attends a boarding school out East, is a former lawyer and public high school English teacher from Wisconsin starting a new business as a legal writing consultant.

Now that my daughter is a high school senior and headed off to college in the fall, among the items I worry about is whether we have properly prepared her to be academically successful there. At first blush, the idea seems absurd. We have read to her since she was a baby, provided intellectually stimulating activities while limiting television and electronics, even sent her to an elite boarding school. What else could we possibly have done? 听While it is too late for me, don鈥檛 let it become too late for you: Teach your gifted child good study habits.

Many gifted students have never really experienced a true academic challenge during high school, especially those who were not enrolled in special schools, even if they have taken AP or honors classes. For them, education is the memorization of facts to be regurgitated at a later date. Therefore, when these students encounter the more rigorous and demanding curriculum of college, they may be without the effective study skills and habits necessary since colleges require more application of concepts rather than just memorization of facts. () Most students look at studying as simply re-reading or restudying class material that was not very challenging to begin with.

This type of study experience will only lead to boredom and frustration. Therefore, if your child is not challenged in his or her regular classes, provide challenging material and projects yourself. Although many experts recommend making this material interesting as well, it is probably best to provide a mixture of both subject matter that your child enjoys and subject matter he or she finds less interesting. Life requires us to persevere and use our study skills in both situations.

Here are some important study skills gifted students need to acquire:

1. 1. Time management – often gifted students have been able to still succeed while procrastinating and completing assignments at the last minute. Help your child learn to:
      • study at a regular time every day and week – make it a habit;
      • set a daily, weekly, and semester schedule, assigning amounts of time to each subject or project;
      • be sure to revise this schedule periodically;
      • prioritize goals on a daily basis – priorities will change as deadlines approach;
      • break long-term projects into short-term attainable steps.

1. 1. Motivation – help your child to:
      • recognize the 鈥渞eal world鈥� application of the material being learned, e.g., a poetry analysis develops not only analytical skills applicable across a spectrum of occupations, but the creativity employers emphasize and 听21st century jobs require;
      • define success as learning new material and working hard, not getting an A on an assessment. Praise effort.

1. 1. Organization:
      • find a place free of everyday clutter to study;
      • visit office supply stores to get an idea of all of the possible products available to help with organization;
      • let the student select the organizational method (your method may not work for them);
      • realize the first choice of organization aids may not work and another method may need to be tried.

1. 1. Studying in chunks:
      • try not to study for longer than 25 minutes as studies show the brain struggles to concentrate on a specific topic for longer than that;
      • break for about five minutes at a time, no longer;
      • if possible, change your environment when you change subject or topic, e.g., study for the math exam in the bedroom and the literature exam in the kitchen (it will help your brain to recall and organize information);
      • start with a harder subject/topic and then alternate with easier ones.

1. Note-taking:
   • take notes when listening to a lecture. (Practice with a TED lecture online if the content presented in class is too easy);
   • develop an abbreviation and punctuation system that makes sense to you;
   • use indentation and white space on the page to separate and organize information;
   • consider a formal method of note-taking, e.g., Cornell notes;
   • check your notes as soon as possible after taking them to make sure they are complete and coherent;
   • re-write your notes as a way of reviewing for an assessment;
   • use mnemonic devices to help recall information from notes.

Two very helpful sites for finding more information about study skills and strategies are and . Dartmouth College has for those who are visual learners.

In some ways, being gifted can sometimes seem more like a curse. Developing study habits is one way to combat that.

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