March 19, 2021

This paid piece is sponsored by Sylvan Learning Center of Sioux Falls.

 It can be stressful as a parent watching a child struggle in school.

And when homework becomes too challenging, it has an impact on home life too.

Sometimes it’s the opposite – your child isn’t being challenged enough and that’s creating a different kind of stress.

“No matter what your unique situation, we’re here to help,” said Michelle McGuckin, who co-owns the Sioux Falls Sylvan Learning Center.

“COVID-19 has disrupted the education of our children. This impact for some is still being felt in the classroom today. If your student started the school year feeling behind and has not been able to ‘catch up,’ you’re far from alone. We have the approach you need.”

Learning at Sylvan goes beyond homework support and is more than a series of work papers. It all starts with the Sylvan Assessment.

“With the Sylvan Assessment, we can see where your child is and what are the key learning needs that should be addressed,” longtime education director Carol Hofman said.

“With a tutoring program personalized for each student that includes progress assessments and a family progress login site, Sylvan will help your child reach their educational goals. This can have a huge impact on a student, improving their confidence, love of learning, enjoyment of school and reducing homework time at home.”

With a ratio of three students to every one teacher, the Sylvan tutoring model ensures plenty of one-on-one tutoring time while also allowing the child to develop as an independent learner.

“Sylvan technology monitors the progress of each student, and the tutoring lessons are based on the key learning needs of the individual student,” McGuckin said.

“Each learning skill is taught based on the individual; there is not a timeline based on the classroom. The student learns at his or her own pace and will move forward as each skill is mastered, moving them on to the next skill. This ensures that a student addresses all learning needs and key foundational skills. With a solid foundation, a student can move forward with confidence. “

The summer is a great opportunity to catch up – but in many cases it’s important to reach out now to allow enough time for this proven method to be most effective before the new school year.

“It’s such a joy to see the Sylvan difference in our students,” Hofman said. “We see students who have been able to be taken off an individual education plan, students enjoying school in some cases for the first time and students no longer needing to be held back. And in some cases, it’s as simple as a student finally picking up a book because they wanted to and not because they had to.”

Does this sound like it could be the right fit for your family?

The team at Sylvan in Sioux Falls answered some common questions you might have.

I just got my child’s report card, and I’m concerned. What should I do first?

First, don’t panic, and don’t feel like you should have seen this coming. We see parents all the time who don’t realize how a child is falling behind until the report card arrives or the teacher conference occurs. In most cases, these are intelligent children who for whatever reason have not mastered some skills along the way.

Reach out to us for an initial assessment. This will tell you and us right away where the child stands and where tutoring may need to begin. It’s about a 90-minute process that covers reading, math and writing. Then, we will hold a conference with you and go over the results. This becomes the start of our tutoring approach, which is individualized for each learner. For instance, if we learn the student is struggling with decimals, there will be more learning modules on decimals until they test out. We start with where a student is at and build them up from there.

We have seen over and over how it’s entirely possible to catch a student up to grade level and build confidence that leads to better report cards.

How long will it take? And how much will it cost?

That all depends on the student, but in general our assessment will give a good estimate of how many tutoring hours it will take to bring the student up to grade level. We recommend parents start thinking about Sylvan now if they are concerned for their student. We can begin preparing and planning for them to be back at grade level by this fall and still give you and your student flexibility to enjoy the summer.

The cost for the initial assessment is $95. After the assessment, a time is scheduled to review the assessment reports and go over any questions that a parent has about Sylvan. At this meeting, we will talk through educational goals, estimated sessions, scheduling and payment options.

Should I talk to my child’s teacher about this?

If you’ve not already talked over how your student is doing with the child’s teacher, you certainly can do that. You will find the teacher also will be concerned the child is not making progress. At Sylvan, not only are we not in competition with teachers, but we enjoy working closely with them. A lot of teachers appreciate when we reach out to them. With your permission, we will communicate with the teacher about what they’re seeing in the classroom, what they are working on and what they would like us to support them in.

Sylvan is made up of teachers, and everyone who becomes a teacher wants to help kids. Many teachers are happy to see that parents are reaching out to give more tools to the student to be successful.

I’ve thought about hiring a private tutor or trying to do it myself, would that work?

This is where it’s important to understand the difference between what we call at Sylvan Homework Support and Sylvan. Homework Support is designed to help you with what you are working on in school at the moment. The problem is, if you have a third grader who is struggling in math, it might be because he is missing foundation skills that were taught in the second grade.

Those key learning needs must be pinpointed and addressed before he can progress with confidence to third grade skills. At Sylvan, we will offer support with current homework, but the focus will be on building the skills the student needs to function successfully and confidently at grade level. Once we do that, homework day to day becomes a much different experience.

I have the opposite problem. My student is bored. Can you help there too?

Definitely. It’s a misconception that Sylvan helps only kids who need help catching up to grade level. And what we’re seeing this year especially is that there isn’t as much time in the classroom to give extra attention to kids who could use more challenge. So we do the exact same assessment, but if they are at grade level or above, we can help them work ahead or work on different things that will challenge and enrich them.

And no matter why your student is at Sylvan, it’s easy for you as a parent to track progress. Log on to the customized online platform to see exactly what the student is working on and how they are progressing.

OK, be honest. Does it really work?

Absolutely! Sylvan has helped many families in our community, and we look forward to helping your child reach their educational goals!

Ready to learn more? Call Sylvan in Sioux Falls at 605-413-1850 or click here.