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Tutoring vs. Brain Training

It’s Never too Late to Build Learning Skills

How to find the right help for a struggling learner

By Geoff Nixon

Published in Greenwich Post, July 2008

Parents often struggle to identify whether their children’s learning challenges are subject specific or broader.  Clues such as interest in reading, focus at school and attitude to homework in general should be used to help parents identify whether their children’s difficulties are at a foundational level or not, and to seek an appropriate response to help them. 

Programs are often classified in two categories; tutoring and learning intervention.  Tutoring re-teaches the same content in a new way; learning interventions strive to change the way children learn.  Tutoring is beneficial for children with isolated difficulties in one or two subjects whereas learning interventions are better suited to children with more fundamental learning issues.

Neuroscientists now know that the window to impact a child’s learning ability does not close at three years of age.  Over the past decade advances in cognitive research, how the brain learns, and neuroscience have made brain rewiring, known as learning interventions, a reality. Intervening in the learning process helps a struggling learner or reader by strengthening the foundational cognitive abilities required to read and learn. 

These scientific advances have been made possible by the intervention of the functional MRI, which takes videos of the brain at work.  The functional MRI allows scientists to test new theories and learn more about how the brain adapts and changes.

With the advent of learning intervention programs, parents now have access to more resources to help their children succeed in school.  The question is, how do you know if your child can benefit from a learning intervention?

By examining the struggles of a fictional learner, one can pinpoint if tutoring will help their child succeed or if an intervention is the key to improved academic performance.

When tutoring is not enough

In Kindergarten, Joan was still not getting her letter sounds.  Her parents thought all she needed was a little help to jumpstart her reading.  In 1st grade they hired a tutor.  It helped, but then in 2nd grade reading comprehension became a problem and they brought in another tutor.  Joan even struggled with math once they began studying word problems.

Joan’s difficulties are most likely linked to reading comprehension.  This is a critcal, foundational skill.  Joan is a good candidate for a learning intervention, which will target the root cause of her learning challenge, the glitch, and train her brain to receive and process information in a new way. 

Built on the neuroscience principles of frequency and intensity, the learning intervention will strive to change the way Joan learns.  The program will use the brain’s natural ability to adapt and change to modify learning skills by engaging and ‘exercising’ the brain’s neural pathways.  Through this program, Joan’s reading, language and comprehension skills can improve.  Upon completion, her newfound learning skills can be applied to all subjects.

When to tutor, when to intervene

For many children there is no glitch that needs correcting, but rather a blind spot in one subject.  In these cases tutoring is the right choice, especially in later grades.  When a child’s struggles are isolated to one subject, they are a good candidate for tutoring.  By presenting the same material in a new way, tutoring is particularly effective at filling in small knowledge gaps and helping children to master math facts.