{"id":810,"date":"2017-11-16T20:02:15","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T20:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org\/blog\/?p=810"},"modified":"2017-11-16T20:02:15","modified_gmt":"2017-11-16T20:02:15","slug":"dyslexia-tutors-cautionary-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org\/advocacy\/dyslexia-tutors-cautionary-tale\/","title":{"rendered":"Dyslexia and Tutors: A Cautionary Tale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-811\" alt=\"A Cautionary Tale - Dyslexia and Tutors - Dyslexia Training Institute\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress-157077-2960416.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/A-Cautionary-Tale-Dyslexia-and-Tutors-Dyslexia-Training-Institute.png\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Have you ever walked onto a car lot and immediately been bombarded, promised the world and left just super annoyed? Me too. Finding a professional to work with your child should not feel like that.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Recently, a parent contacted us and shared a story that we think is important to share with you. Before you read the rest of this blog we want to be very transparent. At DTI we also offer fee-based online and onsite tutoring services. There is a right way and a wrong way to offer these types of services, at least there is if you are in this for the right reasons.<\/p>\n<p>First, if a \u2018specialist\u2019 tells you that he or she can \u2018cure\u2019 your child or guarantees a certain level of improvement in a certain period of time, your red flags should go up. If the \u2018specialist\u2019 asks for a large sum of money up front or you will be wait-listed \u2018for a very long time\u2019, your red flags should go up. If a \u2018specialist\u2019 tells you he or she has figured out how the brain works, with unwavering certainty, all your red flags should be waving wildly.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-812\" alt=\"Dyslexia and Tutors - A Cautionary Tale - Dyslexia Training Institute\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress-157077-2960416.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Dyslexia-and-Tutors-A-Cautionary-Tale-Dyslexia-Training-Institute.png\" width=\"735\" height=\"1102\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A reasonable and honest specialist, will never make claims like the ones listed above for the following reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is impossible to determine what type of progress will be made in a certain period of time because there are far too many variables involved. Some of those variables include: severity of dyslexia, age of student, co-existing conditions, previous tutoring, home support, school support, buy-in and participation from the student, sessions missed, illnesses, vacations, homework, etc., etc., etc.<\/li>\n<li>Asking for a large sum of money up front is questionable in a situation where the match between the tutor and the student might not be a match at all. We have all had students we didn\u2019t click with, be honest, we all have. We only know if it is a match <b><i>after <\/i><\/b>we actually meet our students.<\/li>\n<li>Any time someone tells you to sign up now or lose out, you should walk away. And if you notice that they use that line all the time on social media, then they are in this for the wrong reasons. Yes, at DTI we sometimes have a waiting list, but anyone who has ever experienced a free consultation with us has never felt pressured, in fact they are told to do their due diligence and go home and think it over, meet some more professionals, see who fits your student best.<\/li>\n<li>We have a lot of evidence about interventions that help students improve their reading and spelling. We have some interesting scientific research providing evidence that those with dyslexia process written language differently. However, we do <i>not <\/i>have <b><i>definitive<\/i><\/b> and <b><i>undeniable<\/i><\/b><i> <\/i>evidence about how to \u2018open pathways\u2019 and we do not have <b><i>definitive<\/i><\/b> and <b><i>undeniable<\/i><\/b><i> <\/i>evidence that one intervention will work for every student whose parent contacts us. Scientists know that the brain is far too complicated to use that kind of terminology. Professionals in the dyslexia community should always include words like <i>evidence<\/i> instead of <i>proof<\/i> and<i> usually<\/i> instead of <i>always<\/i>, that is the responsible and intellectually honest thing to do.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Trust your gut and your instinct. Watching your child struggle is hard, but it will be worse when you realize that you wasted time and money because you jumped in too fast. Listen to the language your potential professional is using, does it raise any flags? The moral of this cautionary tale is to do your homework, trust your gut, sleep on it, call your friends, and remember, buyer beware.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever walked onto a car lot and immediately been bombarded, promised the world and left just super annoyed?&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-advocacy","7":"category-dyslexia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}