When tutoring isn’t working
Why more tutoring doesn’t always lead to more progress
You’ve added tutoring, maybe more than once, and your child is working hard. But the progress isn’t matching the effort. Often the problem isn’t the tutor or your child. It’s whether the help is aimed at the right thing.
Serving Long Island & Queens, NY
Dr. Courtney Duhning, Psy.D., ABSNP, NCSPPediatric Neuropsychologist · Manhasset, NY
Three common reasons
Why tutoring may not be working
Tutoring may be targeting the wrong skill.
For example, a child may receive reading comprehension tutoring because they struggle to answer questions about what they’ve read. However, the underlying difficulty may actually be decoding. If a child has to work extremely hard to sound out words, they have fewer mental resources available to understand and remember what they’re reading.
In this situation, practicing comprehension questions may not address the primary reason reading is difficult.
Similarly, a child struggling with math word problems may receive additional instruction in mathematical procedures when the underlying difficulty involves understanding the language of the problem.
Tutoring may target the correct skill but use an instructional approach that doesn’t meet the child’s needs.
For example, a tutor may correctly identify that a child struggles with decoding but primarily use repeated reading, memorization of sight words, or exposure to increasingly difficult books.
For a child with weaknesses in phonemic awareness and decoding, these approaches alone may not be sufficient. The child may need explicit, systematic instruction in sound-letter relationships, blending, and decoding, with carefully sequenced practice and ongoing monitoring of progress.
The issue isn’t necessarily the tutor’s qualifications or effort. It’s whether the instructional approach matches the child’s specific learning needs.
Tutoring may help a child complete assignments without developing the underlying skill.
A child may successfully finish homework with a tutor who breaks down directions, provides reminders, and walks them through each step.
However, when the child encounters a similar assignment independently, they may struggle because they haven’t learned how to plan, organize, retrieve information, or apply the skill without assistance.
Questions to ask your child’s tutor
These questions can help you see whether the tutoring is aimed at the right skill and whether it is working.
- Which specific skill are you working on, and how did you decide that was the right one?
- What approach are you using to teach it, and why does it suit my child?
- How are you measuring progress, and how often?
- What can my child now do on their own that they couldn’t do before?
- How much of each session is homework help, and how much is building the underlying skill?
- If progress stalls, what would you change?
How a neuropsychological evaluation can help
A comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation can help clarify:
- Which specific academic skills are difficult and which are relative strengths.
- Whether difficulties involve foundational academic skills, language, attention, memory, executive functioning, or a combination of factors.
- Why a child may perform well with assistance but struggle independently.
- What type of instruction, intervention, or accommodation may be appropriate.
- Whether additional specialized services or school-based supports should be considered.
An evaluation doesn’t automatically identify one perfect teaching method. Rather, it provides a clearer understanding of the child’s learning profile so that instructional decisions can be more targeted and progress can be monitored.
FAQ
Questions parents ask about tutoring
Should we stop tutoring while we wait for an evaluation?
Not necessarily. Keeping support in place is usually better than stopping it. Once you have the results, the tutoring can be refocused on the skills and approach your child actually needs.
How do I know whether tutoring is working?
Look at what your child can do independently, not only at grades or completed homework. If skills aren’t carrying over to schoolwork done without help after a reasonable period, it’s worth asking why.
How is this different from the testing the school does?
School testing determines whether a child is eligible for services. A neuropsychological evaluation looks more broadly at why learning is difficult, including attention, memory, language and executive functioning, and leads to specific recommendations.
Will the evaluation tell us what kind of tutoring to use?
It will describe the type of instruction and support that fits your child’s learning profile, which you can share with a tutor or the school. It won’t name one perfect program, but it makes those decisions far more targeted.
Find out what the tutoring should be aiming at
A free 15-minute phone consultation is a simple first step to talk through what you’re seeing and whether an evaluation would help.
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