by Jerry Perron

I recently read a magazine article discussing Learning Disabilities and how tutoring is an additional way that parents can support their child who is struggling in school.

Yes, tutoring is appropriate for some students, though certainly not for all. The important distinctions schools should make involve understanding very specifically why the student cannot keep up with his/her classmates. Some students can ‘catch up’ using conventional tutoring, while others need remediation.

Tutoring is drilling in curriculum; remediation is attacking root causes.

Tutoring teaches learning strategies; remediation is uprooting often destructive methods of coping with undeveloped abilities.

Tutoring provides alternative approaches to school tasks; remediation trains foundational abilities enabling the student to think, analyze, scrutinize visual data and process auditory data.

Tutoring provides the means of organizing, through the use of day-timers, for example; remediation trains that part of the brain that organizes all thinking.

Children who have been labeled LD, ADD, ADHD, or dyslexic are, more often than not, merely suffering from a kind of developmental delay or developmental glitch that prevented them from being neurologically ready for the challenges of public education. These children rarely profit from tutoring, but rather require remediation: the engagement through activities designed directly to improve the weak, underdeveloped abilities that cause learning problems (J. Rosner).

In order to improve the skills, first one must determine what foundational areas are actually weak. The purpose of this kind of assessment is not to label the student but to go straight to the deficit and build it up to eliminate the learning impediment. It sometimes happens that the labels which children are given may unintentionally cause teachers to lower their expectations. Worse, these labeled students may begin believing that the labeled “condition” is not something to overcome but to use as an excuse time and time again: “I am dyslexic.”  “I can’t sit still.”  “I am dumb.”  “I can’t focus.”  “I have a processing problem.”

What areas need to be assessed? For the purpose of remediation, the critical areas are those thinking abilities that are prerequisite to the skills of reading, calculating numbers, and writing.

• At a very basic level, can the student sit still
• Does s/he know how to examine information or is s/he merely guessing
• Can he move his eyes or hand without involving the rest of his body
• Is he really comfortable knowing his right from his left
• Can he analyze auditory and visual information, breaking down into patterns what he is looking at or listening to, identifying those parts and the way those  components interrelate
• Can he derive meaning from verbal information, see verbal relationships
• Can he classify information, remember facts
• Can he listen and think and direct his eyes all at the same time
• Are his arm movements jerky
• Can he stay focused and think deliberately for an extended period of time

Schools and tutors, on the other hand, are interested in what a student should know and whether or not the student is at grade level in reading, math, spelling, and higher-level subjects in upper grades. These abilities develop at a reasonable and predictable schedule, so long as the child is exposed to a variety of learning experiences at a time when he was developmentally ready for those crucial experiences (J. Rosner). Schools make assumptions, not unreasonably, about the developmental stages children have attained by the time they are expected to start kindergarten. Those children who lag behind the developmental assumptions will either catch up or fall further behind.

Have you observed that your young child has a much more difficult time identifying letters and numbers, connecting sounds to letters, in general, learning to read with the method now being taught in schools, the Phonetic Method?  These weak Symbolic thinkers need special attention in developing the auditory analysis skills required for successful reading. They were not equipped to deal with Phonics when it was taught as a part of standardized school instruction. As a result, they are behind their grade level in reading and spelling.

Language development and acquisition are important factors upon which school success depends. But have you noticed that your child is bright yet shows little interest in the use or understanding of words, especially many words? M. Meeker and J.P. Guilford, authors of Structure of Intellect model of intelligence, describe these students as Figural Learners, sometimes called Spatial Learners or Right-Brained Thinkers. These children, who prefer dealing with concrete, pictorial, hands-on information, have a much more difficult time in school until they, with great effort, improve their ability–and willingness–to manage the meaning found in spoken and written language.

When a student’s cognitive (thinking) development is incomplete, because of interruption, for example, the learning environment does not stand still and wait for him or her to catch up.  It continues to make demands with ever more complex methods of processing data and information (N. Kephart). If remediation continues to be put off, a student falls farther and farther behind, tutoring is a frustration, and all the negative images the person has of himself continue to be reinforced. On the other hand, if remediation is undertaken, the positive effects are irreversible and remain with the person as a solid foundation upon which to build and accumulate knowledge.

So, now you know that there is another option besides tutoring for your child who struggles in school. Remediation trains and strengthens students in all the basic deficits that are causing their school experience to be on shaky ground. Once those weaknesses are trained, the foundation is strong and solid enough for tutoring to be quick and effective. Discuss with your child’s teacher which method—tutoring or remediation—would be the more helpful for him/her at this time. If your child has already been given a label, you can be sure that the choice is remediation!