Finding a writing tutor

[Anonymous]

How do you go about finding a tutor? We are looking for someone to work with our 11 yr old son on writing a 1-2 times a week. is anyone here using any kind of online zoom tutoring? do you find it effective? Any advice about how to interview/make sure the tutor it a good fit?

[Anonymous]

Outschool? What exactly do you want the tutor to work on?

[Anonymous]

What grade, and what types of writing skills are you looking to have your child work on?

[Anonymous]

Writopia?

[Anonymous]

OP here: thank you for all of your replies. Our sun is in 5th grade. he is amazing at math. loves to read. but his writing abilities are almost non existing. any simple writing assignments in school are huge change. This year's virtual learning only made things worse. We were hoping to find someone that could work with him to show him how to write an essay (however simple it would be in 6th grade), how to structure an essay (introduction, main body, conclusion), how to peek reader interested in the content...

[Anonymous]

My upper ES daughter is taking this class on Outschool and really likes it:
https://outschool.com/classes/be-you-and-become-a-better-writer-narrative-writing-flex-class-rx1jMpx7?sectionUid=6be733c6-6592-408c-b8ce-4da1a81d8534&showDetails=true&usid=TYFzyroy&signup=true&utm_campaign=share_activity_link

The teacher provides really good, on-point feedback, and my daughter really likes being able to write creatively rather than a traditional essay, which has been the focus of school (especially this year).

The teacher also offers one-on-one tutoring, and I think she would be really good at it. Here is her general profile: https://outschool.com/teachers/Alison-Sloan?usid=TYFzyroy&signup=true&authTrigger=follow_teacher&follow=true&utm_campaign=share_leader_link

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here: thank you for all of your replies. Our sun is in 5th grade. he is amazing at math. loves to read. but his writing abilities are almost non existing. any simple writing assignments in school are huge change. This year's virtual learning only made things worse. We were hoping to find someone that could work with him to show him how to write an essay (however simple it would be in 6th grade), how to structure an essay (introduction, main body, conclusion), how to peek reader interested in the content...

We found our tutor by posting on our neighborhood listserv and he was recommended by a neighbor who uses him to work with her kids. I'd start there by posting in your neighborhood listserve. If the tutor knows the middle school and elementary school curriculum she can better focus on lessons which match the school. We tried Outschool but it wasn't connected to the classroom here. Another key is fit. My DS learns so much better with teachers he actually likes.

What you're talking seems almost identical to what I have our tutor work on with my DS and he's making great progress. Since we moved here we've been so disappointed by the writing curriculum. Not sure if our tutor is taking on more students but shoot me an email if you want me to put you in contact. He's great! Fifth grade teacher in MCPS.

[e-mail]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here: thank you for all of your replies. Our sun is in 5th grade. he is amazing at math. loves to read. but his writing abilities are almost non existing. any simple writing assignments in school are huge change. This year's virtual learning only made things worse. We were hoping to find someone that could work with him to show him how to write an essay (however simple it would be in 6th grade), how to structure an essay (introduction, main body, conclusion), how to peek reader interested in the content...

We found our tutor by posting on our neighborhood listserv and he was recommended by a neighbor who uses him to work with her kids. I'd start there by posting in your neighborhood listserve. If the tutor knows the middle school and elementary school curriculum she can better focus on lessons which match the school. We tried Outschool but it wasn't connected to the classroom here. Another key is fit. My DS learns so much better with teachers he actually likes.

What you're talking seems almost identical to what I have our tutor work on with my DS and he's making great progress. Since we moved here we've been so disappointed by the writing curriculum. Not sure if our tutor is taking on more students but shoot me an email if you want me to put you in contact. He's great! Fifth grade teacher in MCPS.

[e-mail]

A real problem for us is that the MCPS curriculum simply has not emphasized writing enough. I’m not sure that having a tutor familiar with the MCPS curriculum is helpful. I would look forward one who would push well beyond the curriculum. I also think it’s just helpful to write regularly. Some of the classes on Outschool that get kids together once a week to just write have been helpful to us.

[Anonymous]

Following. And does anyone know the going rate for writing tutors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Following. And does anyone know the going rate for writing tutors?

If you hire one online from Nebraska it's a lot less than a local tutor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Following. And does anyone know the going rate for writing tutors?

If you hire one online from Nebraska it's a lot less than a local tutor.

And the one in Estonia is cheaper still!

[Anonymous]

I highly recommend robertguisetutoring.com. I found Rob because a friend had a daughter at the MCPS school where Rob teaches and raved about him. I followed his teaching for a year (he posted a lot of his stuff) and was impressed. I used him for my two kids while they were in middle school. They both went on to magnet high schools. Rob is great both if your kid is struggling and if your child is getting A’s but you think is being held to too low a standard. I’ve recommended him to a lot of other people and they’ve been happy. If you contact him, he can put you in touch with me for a personal reference.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for this thread OP.

I have a 13 year old who is also great at Math but a terrible writer.

MCPS writing instruction is pretty much non-existent. Very little feedback on any writing assignments and little instruction, even before Covid.

I’ll check out some of the above recommendations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We found our tutor by posting on our neighborhood listserv and he was recommended by a neighbor who uses him to work with her kids. I'd start there by posting in your neighborhood listserve.

+1

[Anonymous]

you can try https://stellarlane.com, they vet the tutors for you and all the tutoring is done online.