The Lakeway Tutor

Click the links below for answers to common questions

How much do you charge?

What subjects do you tutor?

What are your tutoring times?

Where are you located?

How do I get started?

Why should I hire a tutor?

When should I start using a tutor?

My son has a test tomorrow, can you help him pass?

My son made an 88 on his last test, is it OK to quit tutoring now?

Why is tutoring so expensive?

My daughter has a friend that will tutor for free, is this OK?

Can you tutor more than one student at a time?

What do you do during a tutoring session?

Can you tutor at my house?

Can you handle students with a learning disability?

How often should my son come for tutoring?

How much do you charge?

I charge $50.00 per hour. In special cases where I tutor two students at the same time, I charge $40 for each student. I prefer that you pay in advance or at the time of tutoring. You may pay in advance for any number of tutoring sessions. If you promise to pay on time and if you plan on coming on a weekly basis, I can bill you at the end of the month.

What subjects do you tutor?

I tutor Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, PreCalculus, Statistics, Calculus, Chemistry, and Physics. I also tutor the math portion of the SAT and ACT exams.

What times do you tutor?

I have normal tutoring times at 4:30 PM, 6:00 PM, and 7:30 PM after school on Mondays through Fridays. On request, I can tutor at 8:45 PM, during the day, before school, and on the weekends.

Where are you located?

I am located in Lakeway, not far from the Lakeway City Park, at 601 Peterson Lane. There is a map to my home on this web site.

How do I get started?

Browse this web site so you know what I do. Call me at 608-9554 to set up a tutoring time and ask any questions. Download the enrollment form and agreement from this web site, fill it in, and bring to the first tutoring session. I would like to invite the parents to briefly come to the first tutoring session to meet me and see the tutoring environment. This is not a requirement as I have many students whose parents I have never met. The parent does not have to stay for the entire session.

Why should I hire a tutor?

The roles of teacher and tutor are different. In school, the teacher follows a lesson plan that explains math to the average level of the class. Since the class is from 20 to 30 students, some must struggle and others might get bored. There is basically no way a teacher can devote very much extra time to the student that is struggling. If a student doesn't grasp an idea, it may not be learned, as the teacher has to move on.

The tutor, has to fill in the gaps that are not learned in class. The teacher has the advantage over the tutor in that the teacher knows before hand what they are going to teach on a given day and have time to prepare. Depending on the number of students, the tutor might have to be teaching quadratic equations to one student, probability to another, and matrices to another. The tutor has to be able to teach everything at any time. While a school teacher must move along to keep up with a state mandated curriculum, the tutor can continue to work with a student on a problem area until it is fixed.

When should I start using a tutor?

The short answer is as soon as possible after the student brings home a failing grade on a math exam. A failing grade means the student has not learned some important concepts that will be needed later in the course and in future math courses. It is wise to correct the problem as soon as possible. It is possible that the first bad grade is a temporary thing, but maybe not. Monitor the problem very carefully.

My son has a test tomorrow, can you help?

Probably not very much. One cannot learn math overnight. Learning math is a process of 1) having the teacher explaining the problem, 2) having the teacher showing the student how to work the problem, 3) having the student work a problem themselves with teacher supervision, 4) having the student practice working many similar problems on their own, 5) having the teacher look over the students work to insure the problems are done correctly and re-teach if necessary. After a period of time, the teacher must reassign problems to insure that what was learned was actually retained. This process cannot be done overnight. It is important that the student retain what they learned because what they learned will be required to solve future and more difficult problems.

Thanks for your help. My son got a 88 on his test so I don't need your help any more.

Watch out here. Just because your son got a single or a couple of good grades doesn't mean good grades will continue. You came to a tutor because you saw a problem that needed correcting. Getting back on track doesn't happen in a few tutoring sessions. In fact, if your son is a slightly slow learner, or has missed some important skills in the past, it would be advisable to keep the tutor all year to make sure the good grades continue to happen. For example: I recently helped a student get a couple of good grades on his homework. During the tutoring session, I noticed that the student did not know their multiplication tables and had to rely on a calculator to divide 4 by 2. The parent stopped tutoring. The parent is in for a surprise later in the course when the scores drop.

Thanks for your help, my daughter has a friend that will tutor her for free!

OK....... but sometimes you get what you pay for. You considered tutoring because there was a problem. Make sure the friend is solving the problem. If not, I am still here.

Tutoring is so expensive.

Is tutoring worth the time and cost? Consider the alternative. The job market is competitive. If your son does not learn his math, or other subjects for that matter, when he gets out of high school, he will have a problem competing with others that have done well. Low school scores means it will be harder getting into the better universities, that is if this is a desire, and fewer good job possibilities if you are going directly into the workplace.

So, what do you do during a tutoring session?

I always start the session by asking the student if they have any specific questions or problems they need help with. If so, I address the specific questions. Next, if the student has brought any homework, I will help the student with the homework. Next, I will either re-teach math skills I think the student needs help with, or I will teach ahead if I have a list of upcoming assignments from the teacher. It is important that the student come prepared with questions, review sheets, and homework assignments.

Can you tutor at my house?

No. At my house you can be assured of no distractions. In addition, I have other teaching tools that may be useful such as a white board, textbooks, a computer set up to assist in teaching, models of geometric objects, and etc. I also have a good supply of paper, pencils, rulers, graph paper and items of this type that are readily available. At your house, I am limited to what you have available. I realize that taking the student to and from my house is a bigger burden for the parent, but is probably better.

My son has a learning problem, is this OK?

It depends. It seems that more and more kids are being diagnosed with ADHD or Dyslexia these days. If the condition is controlled, as most are, there is no problem. I am not specifically trained to teach special education students but I will do my best. I have some students with supposedly these conditions but they do well. Sometimes, I wonder.