When Tutoring Isn’t Enough, Try a Learning Intervention

Slow Progress Despite Regular Tutoring Support?

If your child is falling behind or homework is stressful, you have two options:

• Manage the problem – tutoring
• Try to fix the problem – Intervention

With or without a formal diagnosis, this article looks at the merits and challenges of tutoring and learning interventions to help you figure out which is the best fit for your child’s unique circumstances right now.

Many families come to us frustrated. They ask: why isn’t tutoring helping my child? That’s because tutoring does not address the cause of a learning disability; it’s a support mechanism. To address the problem, you need an intervention that fits your child’s needs.

Tutoring: Academic Content (What to Learn)

Live tutoring is primarily transactional, academic content-oriented, and near-term, focusing mainly on homework, test preparation, or difficulty with a particular concept or subject. There is a tendency to push rote memorization over understanding, a shortcut that is not real learning.

• Goal: To get through the homework or the next test.
• Time Commitment: Open-ended as schoolwork gets harder.
• Long-Term Outcome: Helps manage symptoms, but dependence on a tutor typically persists.

Tutoring can become a never-ending cycle that lasts for years. This is expensive for parents and not helpful for the child.

Gemm Learning Intervention: How to Learn (and Read)

A learning intervention focuses on long-term outcomes. Because fixing the source of a problem is often the fastest way to make a change, learning interventions tend to be fast-acting and often transformational when the underlying cause is identified and addressed.

• Goal:  Change learning – permanently.
• Time Commitment: One-time program, 30-minutes/day for 6-8 months.
• Long-Term Aim: Learning independence.

Learning interventions can be life-changing if you choose one that matches your child’s unique set of issues, accurately addresses the underlying source of difficulty, and follows protocols. Gemm Learning has hundreds of stories of children whose lives have been changed by our Fast ForWord program.

How To Choose Tutoring vs Intervention

When to Call a Tutor

If your child is:

• Generally happy at school and when asked to read or do homework
• Some grades disappoint, but there’s no pattern
• Making progress in reading, even if behind grade level

Live tutors can help with occasional hard-to-grasp concepts, support difficult homework loads, and address minor reading and spelling difficulties. The main thrust is that it’s a temporary aid, and the focus is on academic content, not the learning difficulty.

How To Tell When Tutoring Is Not Enough

If your child is:

• Unhappy or emotional over homework, at reading time or going to school
• Has had speech issues early on – making them an at-risk reader
• More than a year behind in reading, and making slow progress
• Smart, but grades consistently disappoint
• Starting to lose confidence

These behaviors indicate either a child who knows they are struggling and trying to avoid the frustration or a clear and obvious mismatch between intelligence and learning results.

Of course, another reason to try an intervention is when tutoring is not working. Most Gemm Learning clients have tried tutoring first. 

Intervention Pros and Cons

Most evidence-based interventions are effective when the source of learning difficulties matches the learning gaps they address, and when student attendance and participation meet the protocol requirements.

The one-and-done aspect, the potential to get a child off the tutoring treadmill, is appealing to families, particularly for children who are frustrated and starting to create a negative connection to learning that will not easily be reversed. However, two other considerations remain.

• Gemm Learning (30 minutes a day) can be hard to fit into an already busy schedule. Many families ask the school to reduce homework while working on our programs. Other families wait until summer, our busiest time.
• Interventions don’t always work, especially when the program doesn’t match the difficulty. Gemm Learning starts with a 1-on-1 consultation to make sure the child is a candidate for one of our programs. In most cases, the sources of difficulty are clear. However, sometimes there are hidden delays that impact outcomes.
  • Our programs are somewhat diagnostic. If a child makes unexpectedly fast progress in our cognitive training, it can indicate those skills are not the source of their difficulty, and we will reassess.

So, when choosing a learning intervention, focus on the required logistics and understand the source of your child’s delays. Our specialists can help, and you can review these checklists:  reading warning signs, dyslexia symptoms, auditory processing delay symptoms, working memory symptoms, and ADHD symptoms.

Gemm Learning is a popular intervention because it addresses the most common sources of reading and learning difficulties: language processing-based delays. Furthermore, it’s a manageable 30-minute protocol (or two 15-minute protocols) at home, with remote oversight. Our student participation rate is 90-95% – the logistics are manageable for most families.

Gemm Learning Interventions: Who We Help

Gemm Learning provides Fast ForWord and Cogmed, both evidence-based interventions used worldwide, at home with proactive monitoring and coaching.

To find out how our interventions could help your child, check out our solutions by learning need:

• Reading programs
• Dyslexia reading programs
• Auditory processing delay treatment
• ADHD programs
• Working memory programs
• Programs for executive function

A learning intervention can have a profound impact on your child’s life, not only in academics but also in self-esteem and socially. So much of a child’s life is easier and more enjoyable if school is going well. Not to mention the value of getting off the tutoring treadmill.

If tutoring isn’t helping your child and you are looking for an alternative, call us at 877.914.4366 to see whether your child is a candidate for one of our intervention programs.