I’m sure there are plenty of tutoring spots in Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and countless more in the south bay but I’m in inclined to believe that few can measure up to The Study Hut in Manhattan Beach. Many parents struggle with where to send their children to get some help. They try to give their children a leg up so they maybe they won’t have to struggle as much in the future. The choices for giving a child an advantage can be mind boggling at times. There are so many places making claims about improving grades and how they will accomplish this amazing transformation in your child. They make promises of making them an “A” student over night. The truth is there is no magic formula. There is no making your child an overnight genius. Change comes with work and constant work to boot. The work is a communal project; it can’t come in a tutor session alone. Now, this is the place where the real separation comes into play. Other places say they will change the culture your child has developed but only care about what occurs in the tutoring session only. However the dedicated folks at the study hut aka the hut make sure to communicate with the parents on the work which is accomplished and needs to be accomplished on a nightly basis. They call home and let parents know their child still have 3 hours worth of work left and work to develop strategies to make sure this isn’t the norm. They make sure the culture created at the hut also becomes the culture the student sees at home. Because it takes a village to raise a child, no matter how big or small the village might be.
One of the most gratifying things about being a tutor at the Study Hut is when students have an “a-ha!” moment. We’ve all had a few of these; when nothing seems to be making sense and then all of a sudden, everything clicks. It’s a great feeling and one I personally enjoy seeing in our hut students.
Mason is a student at Palos Verdes High School and doesn’t particularly enjoy writing essays. He came in one day with an assignment to write about someone who has influenced his life in a positive way. Mason had a lot of great stories about his football coach but couldn’t figure out how to organize all of this overwhelming information into a structured essay. Mason asked, “Why do I have to organize this? It takes away from the fun of writing my story.” When I told him that an essay is a way of convincing the reader of something you believe in, everything clicked. “Ohhh I can totally convince you.” Mason said with a big grin. After I told Mason to tell me why his coach motivates him, not only was Mason listing positive attributes about his coach, but he was also giving me descriptive reasons and examples that helped support his argument.
After he told me everything, we got it down on paper in an outline format. Mason expressed that outlining the essay actually wasn’t as hard as he originally thought. He also even thought it was cool that he was able to write an essay about something that was important in his life.
Whether it’s writing essays, studying for chemistry or working out A.P. calculus problems, students are bound to have many “a-ha!” moments while working with tutors at the Study Hut.
Study Hut Tutoring is proud to announce the opening of its newest location. Study Hut El Segundo will be having its soft opening on Monday, March 7, 2001, at which point students will begin subject tutoring and SAT tutoring as usual.
We already have a small client base that will be starting immediately. These students currently attend El Segundo High School, El Segundo Middle School, Richmond Street School, Center Street Elementary, Arena High School, St. Bernard High School, among other schools.
Study Hut Tutoring El Segundo will be staffed by young, local tutors, fresh out of college. We specialize by subject, and can handle almost any class through the high school level. We can tutor almost every AP class, and we also tutor Loyola Marymount students in select subjects. Finding a good LMU tutor can prove to be difficult, and our students are always ecstatic about the service they receive.
Here are a few of the subjects that we tutor at Study Hut Tutoring:
– Math tutoring: algebra; geometry; trigonometry; pre-calculus; AP Calculus; AP Statistics.
– English tutoring: All levels, K-12th grade, and college.
– Science tutoring: biology; chemistry; physics; marine biology; physiology.
– History tutoring: world history/European history; U.S. history; geography; economics; government
– Spanish tutoring
We also provide one-on-one SAT tutoring in El Segundo, as well as training for the SAT 2s, PSAT, ACT, PLAN, HSPT, COOP, TACHS, and ISEE.
For pre-enrollment and guaranteed placement in a preferred time slot, or for general questions before March, please call our Manhattan Beach office at 310-546-2408, and ask for the owner, Rob. We will add the El Segundo phone number to the website as soon as it becomes available.
One-on-one tutoring has many advantages over group tutoring. One-on-one tutoring is more focused and versatile than group tutoring. With group tutoring, tutors focus on more general concepts. They often have to teach material some of the students already understand. Its hard for the tutor to explain the concepts in a way each student can understand. With one-on-one tutoring, the tutor can develop a study plan to strengthen the students’ weaknesses . If the student is having trouble understanding a concept, the tutor can spend more time explaining the concept in a way that the student can understand. The tutor also helps to build an infrastructure for studying at home that best suits the student own preferences for learning. Students can also get help with more than one subject with one-on-one tutoring. If they have and a math and a chemistry test the next day, but feel strongly on about math, they can quickly go through the math concepts that aren’t understood and spend the rest of the time focusing on chemistry.
One on one tutoring keeps students focused and engaged in the lesson, allowing the students to use their time more efficiently. When in groups, many kids are overly self-conscious of what their peers think. They do not ask as many question and they do not engage in the conversation for the fear of feeling stupid or being laughed at. As many teachers would contest, students are also more likely to get distracted by their friends and engage in side conversations. One-on-one tutoring cuts out these distractions, giving students more bang for their buck.
Another benefit of one-on-one tutoring is that each student can choose a tutor that best suits his or her liking. The session is a lot more enjoyable and more can be accomplished if the if the student likes the person who is tutoring him/her. The students will stay more focused on their work rather than how much they dislike the tutor.
Yesterday was a busy Thursday. In fact, every school week there is a busy Thursday, whether you come to Study Hut Tutoring or not. With tests and quizzes, homework and projects, six classes of papers going in and out of the backpack everyday and all your friends jammed into one classroom, the task of managing a workload is impossible. Am I right? Let us take a quick look of how this impossible situation appears when our 8th grader Corey sits down for his tutoring hour. Corey is a very sharp student who is able to breeze through his pre-algebra assignments. He is very capable in other areas too. He is maintaining a strong grade in social studies, however, his grades dont reflect his intelligence.
So what is the matter? What do we do? How can we bump up these “C” grades up if Corey doesn’t need help with the actual subject matter? Lucky for Corey, the Study Hut knows exactly what to do. After speaking with his mom, I know she is frustrated with Corey’s sluggish performance around the house. So now Corey is at Study Hut, sitting down with me. The first thing I do is look at his daily planner. It is a bad sign when the whole thing is blank. The planner is the tool that fosters accountability, so if the planner is blank, Corey isn’t even accountable with himself, let alone with parents, teachers, and his tutor. The next step is manually going through the backpack. This is crucial to set the record straight and explain the reasoning and utility of behind using the daily planner.
After all, why do something if it doesn’t serve a greater purpose, save time, or help in the short term and in the long term. Young students are no different. You would never do a lot of things the right way if there was no direct or indirect benefit. After digging through every subject and organizing the folder, we see that there is a pile of old, completed work that can go into a folder and can be stashed away at home in the closet. The other pile was larger than I would like. This pile had a ton of incomplete work. Our plan from here on out at home everyday and at tutoring is as follows:
1)Write in the planner for every subject, during each class period, every week.
2) take notes each class period, everyday
3) make a list prior to tutoring of what we will be working on at Study Hut, and what will still have to be done at home.
4) Make one study tool (flashcards, outline, study guide, practice test) for each class each week.
5) show all of this to the tutor to remain accountable during bi-weekly tutoring sessions.
These simple tasks will, and have already started to, pull grades up, increase accountability, and lead to domination.
After missing a few consecutive days of school due to illness, a local Manhattan Beach Middle School Student (who shall go unnamed) was inundated by a surge of school work. Having missed many critical days of instruction, his class left him behind and he didn’t have the study skills to catch up on his own. He failed his first quiz after returning and wrestled with hopelessness and despair.
He met his teacher after school, but still couldn’t quite understand the lessons completely. Lacking confidence in his understanding of the material, he turned the tv on…and yes, mom was well aware. Stressed and working a full schedule herself, his mom was unable to help him understand his math concepts and therefore she couldn’t help him catch up. Struggling to keep his head above water, the student was desperate to find help. After talking to some teachers and parents, Mom heard about the Study Hut… and not a moment too soon!
After only two hour-long visits, the student caught up on all his school work, and felt confident working with the material. After two more visits, he was able to get ahead of the curve by mastering the math concepts from the chapter that his class had yet to cover!
Working with the same tutor each session, the student was able to master his homework as well as develop concrete study skills that he will use for the rest of his student career. Today, his scores and self-esteem are on the rise his and new study skills have given him the confidence to study on his own.
After a month of working with a personal tutor at Study Hut, he’s come from teetering on the brink of failure to blossoming. His scores have risen steadily and now he is a leader in class.
Having worked at The Study Hut for the past few years, I have learned quite a bit regarding the effects of study habits on students’ success in school. Developing a solid studying and time management routine at a young age can be one of the most important things a student can do for his or her educational career. I believe that by being effective at studying and being able to wisely mange your time, you will have positive results in both the short and long run. A college professor once told me that “Education is an attitude, not an IQ”, and as the more years that go by, the more he said made sense to me. Students that know how to efficiently approach learning will always have more success than the ones that don’t. It is as simple as that.
At Study Hut Tutoring, we understand this principle and place a high value not just on learning, but learning the proper way. The key to all of this is to stimulate the brain in as many ways as possible, so that when students are asked to recall information, typically via an exam, the brain has built enough strong neuron connections to quickly and easily pull information from it.
Many students come to Study Hut because they are struggling with Spanish. They struggle with the verbs since they forget how to conjugate all the verbs they have been learning throughout the year, and they also forget their vocabulary. Read the rest of this entry »
When attending middle school, organization is key to success, and that is why we focus a lot of our energy on the implementation of organizational skills. Assuring students’ backpacks are clean and folders have dividers are ways we aid in promoting the success of our students. We try to incorporate good habits while the students are young so they can really utilize these skills as they get older. As students grow, so does their workload, and organization only becomes that much more important with age. Read the rest of this entry »
While the older kids in Redondo Beach are wrapping up the California Standardization tests and getting ready for finals, middle school students at Parras Middle School are gearing up for Star Testing next week. Some math classes are assigning rigorous review packets to prepare their students for next week, and Study Hut’s tutors are here to offer assistance to be sure students get the most out of the review. Though it may seem like busy work, it benefits Redondo students in two ways. Read the rest of this entry »
