Michelle

Jasper N. from Gaithersburg, MD

Our nine year old, U.S. born son was having quite a bit of difficulty with his language arts skills (reading comprehension, speaking and writing). He is your typical high energy, easily distracted, homework hating child. While my wife was a native Japanese speaker, I was born and raised in the U.S., so when he was even placed in ESOL, I was very upset. With one of my degrees being in English, I thought I could just give him some extra lessons outside of school to help him catch up. unfortunately, no matter what I tried, he could not stay focused. As a last resort, my wife and I decided to try a tutor. We chose Michelle over the other interviewees because of her passion for teaching and effective communication skills. My son also thought she was the most approachable and least intimidating. For the duration of the summer, Michelle came to our home to tutor our son once a week. At the first lesson, Michelle and my son quickly meshed, but as I had expected (and feared), my son was too comfortable and goofed around and was not very focused. As I was about to walk over there to speak with my son, Michelle impressively switched up her approach and successfully got my son's attention back. Over the following weeks, his language skills began to noticeably improve; as did his desire to work hard (which I feel was the most significant factor). Michelle maintained regular communication with us and even seamlessly adjusted her lesson plan to incorporate our requests. Not only did Michelle take the time to speak with me after each lesson, but she provided several different methods (personal tutoring webpage, email summary, etc.) through which we could verify his homework assignments and review the task areas that were covered as well as what to expect the following week. On a few occasions, we were out of town (with no access to a computer) and needed some clarification on my son's assignment because he forgot some important details. It was a weekend, so expecting no response, I sent Michelle a quick text message. Within a few minutes, she responded and my son was able to complete his assignment! Overall, our experience with Michelle and her ability to get through to our son to improve his language skills was significantly better than we had expected (considering the fact that we found her through a website). She is a phenomenal teacher and we would have loved to keep her as our son's tutor through the school year, but she had to get back to school (to become a teacher). She is honest, caring, approachable, strict at the right times and VERY effective! Tutors are not cheap, but after we saw the results, we concluded that the money was VERY well spent. She will provide $100 an hour service for a reasonable market price. I am confident that anyone who is fortunate enough to get worked in to her busy schedule will agree 100%!!