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| Are you looking for a math tutor in Lexington, KY? |
Regardless of your reasoning, if you fall into one of the
above categories, until now, you would have had to embark on a great research
journey to find the best math tutor in Lexington, KY. To take the pain out of that journey, I have compiled a comparison of all of
the math tutoring programs, math enrichment programs, and after school math
programs in Lexington, KY. I hope this
comparison helps you to make the best decision for your child.
WyzAnt | Tutoring
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| WyzAnt versus KUMON | Lexington, KY |
WyzAnt Tutoring is an online advertising platform for
private math tutors. In Lexington, KY,
slightly less than 100 math tutors are advertising their services on the WyzAnt
site. These tutors charge anywhere from
$25 - $65 / hour. The site allows you to
filter by the gender of the tutor, highest/lowest price per hour, distance from
your home, and ratings. Most tutors have
a bio with a picture to advertise their qualifications.
I was shocked to see that almost 100 people in Lexington, KY
claim to be math tutors. Since I’m the
type of consumer, who boils my options down to the “top ten,” my analysis below
will focus on the top ten math tutors listed on the aforementioned site based
on their ratings in Lexington, KY.
TUTOR’S GENDER. I appreciated how a parent can filter by
gender, because at least for me, I would rather a woman work in a one-to-one
tutoring environment with my daughters than a male. Of course, that’s just my personal preference. Of the top 10 math tutors in Lexington, KY
listed, half were women. So, we are off
to a good start.
TUTOR’S AREA OF
FOCUS. My children are in elementary
school. Consequently, I read the bios of
each of the 5 best math tutors in Lexington, KY and found that only 2 had
listed tutoring young children as their direct experience. If you go to WyzAnt’s website and perform the
search for the best math tutor in Lexington, KY, as I did, you will find that
all of the top 10 tutors, with the exception of one, are math or science graduate
students, who are tutoring on the side to make extra cash. I have an issue with this, because I wanted
whatever solution I chose for my daughter’s math tutor to be laser focused on
math education – I want it to be their career and what they were professionally
trained in. In other words, just because you are a whiz at math does not mean you
are trained and experienced in teaching the way to learn math.
TUTOR’S FEES. Even if I could get over the fact that
most of the tutors on WyzAnt were not professionally trained in teaching math,
I also found the hourly rates to be unaffordable for most parents in Lexington,
KY. My budget was around $100 per month
per child. However, the average rate of
the best rated tutors in Lexington was $41.50 per hour, meaning at my budget, I
would get less than 2.5 hours of tutoring for each of my daughters each month. Surely the best math tutoring solution in
Lexington, KY should include more than a few hours of work each month.
WyzAnt | Tutoring
Summary. If you are looking for the
best math tutor in Lexington, KY and have a considerable budget to spend each
month, $300+ per month, than a private in-home tutor found through WyzAnt.com
might be an option for you. As for me,
my search goes on.
Sylvan Learning
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| Sylvan Learning Center versus KUMON | Lexington, KY |
While there is not a Sylvan Learning Center within 100 miles
of Lexington, KY, I was still interested in the program since it has
considerable brand recognition, and I was curious how much its online program cost. Unfortunately, I called at 10:38 on a Monday
morning to inquire about Sylvan’s online learning program, and as of Thursday no one had returned my call.
TakeLessons.com
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| TakeLessons.com versus KUMON | Lexington, KY |
The TakeLessons website felt like way too much of a sales
pitch for me to seriously consider it in my research. When I went to the site, I could not find any
information about their process for screening tutors, estimated cost, etc. In
fact, the company wanted my personal information before I could go any further
into the site. No thank you. If you are set on an in-home tutor and have a
decent budget, I would recommend going to WyzAnt’s website.
Craigslist
I have serious doubts that the best math tutor in Lexington,
KY is going to be the hidden gem on Craigslist.com. However, for our research purposes, I did
investigate the options. I found two listings for tutors who addressed
math for young children; both tutors charged $35 per hour.
Care.com | TutorSelect.com | PurpleMath.com
The search infrastructure on Care.com, TutorSelect.com,
PurpleMath.com frustrated me. I could
only search by “tutor” in Lexington, KY.
I could not filter by subject, gender of the instructor, distance from
my house, ratings, price for services, etc.
For instance, although Care.com turned up 150 results for tutor in
Lexington, KY. I was not about to waste
my time shuffling through each bio. There are clearly better ways to find the
best math tutor in Lexington, KY.
KUMON
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| KUMON is the best alternative to math tutoring in Lexington, KY |
WHAT KUMON IS NOT. So, for anyone who has ever asked, “What is
KUMON?” The big and unexpected answer is
that KUMON is not actually a tutoring service at all – at least not what most
Americans perceive tutoring to be.
Although KUMON doesn’t meet our Western perception of what tutoring is
(an adult helping a child or teen do their school homework), it is actually
superior to that conception.
A SOLUTION RATHER
THAN A BAND-AIDE. Instead of helping
a child struggle through work that is sent home from school, KUMON has created
a way for children to learn the fundamental skills that are the root cause
behind their struggles. In other words,
KUMON is the best way to learn and master basic skills in reading and math in
Lexington, KY. When your child has
mastered the basics, she or he will find her homework from school to be easy. In this sense, KUMON is designed to be a
life-long solution to learning, rather than a band-aide to current struggles in
school.
NO CRUTCHES ALLOWED IN KUMON. Additionally, while KUMON
teaches your child a better way of learning math and reading, it also helps
them to become independent learners. The KUMON methodology believes that tutors
are crutches; if you hire a tutor for your child now, they will need one in
college. Meanwhile, their peers, who are
independent learners, will be excelling in colligate level studies without any
crutch to lean on.
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| KUMON helps to raise children as independent learners. | Lexington, KY |
HOW MUCH DOES KUMON
CHARGE? KUMON’s fees are a
straight-forward monthly payment. Most
KUMON centers charge between $100-$115 per month per student for one
subject. This fee includes unlimited
access to the KUMON director in Lexington, KY, Sudha Chopra, who will be
instrumental in helping your child learn to be an independent learner. It also includes KUMON’s learning method,
which will be catered on a weekly and daily basis to your child’s needs. Your child’s KUMON exercises will be unique
to your child and be constantly adjusted to ensure her mastery of each math (or
reading) skill.
The Tutoring Club
A HYBRID
APPROACH. I was actually shocked to
see that a hybrid of private tutoring and KUMON exists. This is exactly what the company, The
Tutoring Club, LLC., tries to offer residents in Lexington, KY. The Tutoring Club employs private tutors to
carry-out a KUMON-like methodology.
Additionally, like a private tutor’s offering, the Tutoring Club does
provide help with school homework and will prepare students for standardized
tests and placement exams.
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| The Tutoring Club versus KUMON | Lexington, KY |
Additionally, unlike KUMON, who sees their learning
methodology as a life-long journey (in Japan babies are taking KUMON, which is
producing 2 year-olds who know how to read, and Japanese seniors are showing
diminished signs of dementia while in the program), The Tutoring Club will give parents a
specific time-frame to meet a set goal.
In other words, while KUMON (true to Japanese form) sees learning as a
life-long process that never should end, The Tutoring Club will give parents an
ETA, of sorts.
AN EXPENSIVE APPROACH. For
example, from what I can gather from my research, say your child is falling
behind his peers in first grade math.
You can bring this challenge to The Tutoring Club, which might respond
with the goal of getting your first grader working above grade level in 64
hours spread over a period of 4-8 months for an estimate of $2,800.00. So, essentially, in this scenario, The
Tutoring Club is charging you around $43.75 per tutoring hour.
A MOTHER’S
CONCERNS. At first, The Tutoring
Club seemed like the best of both worlds; it offered a service where I could
bring my child to get help with school homework and, or reach a specific and
quantifiable goal. However, as a mother,
I found some things that bothered me about The Tutoring Club as a company.
First, unlike KUMON, which is a
Japanese methodology of learning math and reading and has been finely tuned and
perfected over the past fifty years by experts in academia, The Tutoring Club
was established in the 1990s. Therefore,
The Tutoring Club’s exercises, which deliver its method, are still being adjusted
and edited. In fact, I read on
GlassDoor.com about one of their employees
being embarrassed by typos in The Tutoring Club’s class work. I’m pretty sure that KUMON’s founder, Toro
Kumon, would roll over in his grave if a teacher ever found a typo in any KUMON
exercise. In other words, KUMON has spent over a half century fine tuning and streamlining its method and medium.
Second, from a business
perspective, I was concerned to learn that even though The Tutoring Club has
been established since 1991, there are only 122 locations world-wide. And, perhaps even more worrisome, is that the
company is not growing. In fact, it is in
a state of negative growth; in 2010, there were 143 Tutoring
Club centers in the U.S., but that number dropped to 112 by 2013. Perhaps the cause of the slow year-over-year
growth and the negative growth in the past few years is a corporate or an
operational issue. Nevertheless, as a
parent, I worry about whether or not the method is experiencing difficulties at
the center-level, which would certainly affect my children.
Last, as mentioned above, cost is a
huge factor in my search for the best math tutor in Lexington, KY. The Tutoring Club, like private tutors in
Lexington, charges by the hour. Not
surprisingly, the cost for both options is similar, around $41/hr. Although that expense doesn’t work for my
budget, I can see pros and cons with both a private tutor and The Tutoring
Club.
For instance, as a person who is
driven by results, I appreciate how The Tutoring Club sets a goal, tells
parents how much money and time it will require to reach the goal, and then
stands behind the results. But,
remember, that $41/hr estimate is not one-on-one tutoring with your child. Tutors
at The Tutoring Club tutor three students at a time and, obviously, the company
pays its tutors a small fraction what it charges parents. This
scenario makes me wonder why a good, private tutor who can produce measurable results
would ever work for The Tutoring Club.
On the other hand, I’m not confident that a private tutor in Lexington,
KY would be willing or have the know-how to set a specific goal and work
backwards to achieve that goal in a set time-frame as the Tutoring Club
does.
And The Winner Is…
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| KUMON takes the prize for the best alternative to math tutoring in Lexington, KY |
So, after conducting all of my research, who am I prepared
to give the title to as, “The best math tutor in Lexington, KY?” Well, there is no easy way to answer this,
because every parent’s situation is different.
I am focused on my daughters excelling academically throughout their
entire academic career, plus I am constrained to a monthly budget (I can just imagine trying to convince my
husband to pay a tutor $2,800 for 4 months of work), so for me KUMON is the
best math tutor in Lexington, KY.
However, if you are a parent who is not limited to a budget
and wants someone to come to your home several times a week to help your
children complete their homework from school, then, by all means, a private
tutor is a good option. On the other hand, if I did live that glorious
budget-free lifestyle, I would also pay my private tutor to take my children to
KUMON a couple of times a week. This
scenario is ideal, because the private tutor could help them with the homework that their school sends home every day, and KUMON would be simultaneously preparing them for collegiate-level
mathematics.
I hope this comparison
has helped you determine what the best math tutoring solution is for your
Lexington, KY family. I’d love to hear
about your tutoring stories and reviews.
Please email them to me at seacatanna@gmail.com
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