Reading tutoring isn’t just for those who need help building basic reading skills. A good reading tutor will help your student to master new sight words, decipher new vocabulary using context, and establish strategies to improve reading comprehension and analysis. Reading tutoring also helps students gain confidence and become more motivated to read. Over time, the benefits of reading tutoring snowball: the more confident a student gets, the more motivated he is to read, and the more he reads, the more confident he gets!
Question: What skill is necessary for success in nearly every field?
Answer: Reading quickly and efficiently.
The Importance of Reading
Whether a student wants to be an engineer or an English professor, the chances are good that he’s going to have to do a lot of reading along the way. Students who struggle with reading benefit from reading tutoring to shore up weaknesses and build a strong foundation for academic success across a range of subject areas.
But reading tutoring has benefits that extend far beyond the classroom:
Readers are more empathetic.
Researchers at Kingston University found that people who read fiction tend to be kinder and more empathetic. This makes sense: reading fiction requires imagining characters and situations, seeing things from alternative perspectives, and relating to imaginary people. All of these thought processes relate to empathy, the ability to share others’ feelings.
Reading reduces stress.
Just six minutes of reading can reduce stress levels by more than two-thirds, better than any other stress-reduction method tested in a study by researchers at the University of Sussex. Their conclusion: “Losing yourself in a book is the ultimate relaxation.”
Employers seek traits that come from reading.
According to annual surveys, more than 4 in 5 employers seek candidates with strong written communication skills. The second most widely-sought attribute was strong problem-solving skills. Would it surprise you to learn that both of these traits are associated with reading?
Research has shown that the more students read, the wider their vocabularies become. A richer vocabulary contributes to strong communication skills and helps students to become better writers. Moreover, frequent readers naturally absorb the conventions of writing and fluency with sentence structures and syntax, making them stronger writers than their peers.
Other researchers have concluded that critical thinking and critical reading build off of one another, such that those who regularly engage in critical reading become better problem-solvers and more creative thinkers.
Does Your Child Need Reading Tutoring?
Nearly 1 in 3 fourth-grade students cannot read at a basic level. Only 37% of high school seniors are considered proficient readers. Clearly, too many students are passing from grade to grade without building strong reading skills.
Because so many students struggle with reading, it can be difficult to tell whether your child needs reading tutoring. After all, many struggling readers still do perfectly fine in the classroom, so grades are not always the best indicator.
Your child might need reading tutoring if he/she:
- avoids reading or insists on reading the same things over and over.
- struggles with sight words (words most readers recognize on sight without needing to sound out or decode).
- guesses when asked about the content of a book/passage that he/she just read.
- struggles with spelling and vocabulary tests.
C2 Education’s reading tutors turn struggling or reluctant readers into bookworms by tailoring their approach to each individual student. They work with students to establish better reading habits, build stronger reading strategies, and expand their vocabularies, ultimately creating the reading foundation necessary for a lifetime of success. Contact your local C2 center today to find out how a C2 reading tutor can help your child.
