For many students, Study Hut is not just their tutoring center, it’s almost like another home, especially Study Hut Seniors. They have come here for many years, and formed special bonds with their tutors. Their tutors have seen them through their most difficult tests and most impressive triumphs.
One special pair is Laura and her student Kelly. Kelly looks up to Laura like a big sister, and has spent the majority of her high school career as Laura’s student. Together the duo have tackled monstrous English essays for Kelly’s challenging AP Literature classes. Some nights Kelly would come in for hours and Laura would stay late just to make sure that every last line was absolutely perfect.
When it was time to work on test prep, Kelly didn’t want to work with anyone but Laura. This gave her an extra advantage because Laura was already familiar with Kelly’s learning style, so she was able to tailor their sessions so that Kelly could get the most out of them. Laura also knew how to present difficult content and the techniques for mastering the ACT in a way that was easy for Kelly to digest and practice. Working together, they were able to raise Kelly’s score.
Kelly also trusted Laura to help her on her final leg of college apps. From college application essays to the grueling senior capstone project, they have worked on everything together. They are both going to be so heartbroken when Kelly’s days at Study Hut come to an end. However, both of them are incredibly excited for Kelly’s promising future in the highly competitive USC Thornton School of Music.
Jacob comes in once a week for enrichment tutoring with his tutor Charlsey. Jacob picks up on most of the material he learns in class right away, but has trouble with second-guessing himself while doing his homework. He also gets very nervous while taking his tests. His test anxiety negatively impacts his scores on tests.
At Study Hut, he works on reviewing math concepts. Together, Charlsey and Jacob work on his homework. Charlsey makes sure that Jacob is doing the problems correctly. The reassurance that he knows what he is doing boosts Jacob’s confidence. Charlsey also sends him home with extra practice work to do between their sessions and his tests so that he does not forget any of the material they went over.
Together they also go over Jacob’s biology classwork. Sometimes his teacher does not clearly explain confusing topics, such as the difference between meiosis and mitosis. They practice drawing and labeling diagrams of different cell structures and complex processes like DNA replication and cellular respiration. Drawing out the diagrams rather than looking at them helps students remember content more vividly, due to their muscle memory working along with their regular memory. Writing out the processes in their own words also helps students understand confusing and complex processes better.
His weekly sessions at Study Hut have helped ease Jacob’s anxiety. He is no longer stressed when he goes into tests because he has practiced the problems so many times. He got a 4 out of 4 on his last common core standards test!
Imagine if each year you allowed three consecutive months to pass without ever considering diet or exercise; the result would be low energy, an underperforming immune system, and many other undesirable consequences. Just like any other part of the human body, the brain requires regular attention and maintenance to perform to its potential. Students often struggle to get back into the swing of academics after a long summer break, as their brains have been stagnant for weeks on end. Here at Study Hut Tutoring, we make sure to keep our students sharp through the summer time, allowing an easier entrance into the new school year and helping them to start strong and maintain that impressive GPA throughout the course of the academic year.
Summer tutoring offers many benefits to students. For some, summer tutoring serves as a valuable time to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the previous school year, and to clear up and solidify conceptual understanding that they will need to progress to more advanced courses. For others, summer tutoring serves as an opportunity to learn new material before being exposed to it in the classroom, giving them more confidence and an easier route to an “A”. And still for others, we help with writing enrichment, summer reading requirements, and preparation for the Fall SAT and ACT.
Of course, we at Study Hut Tutoring also appreciate the value of leisure time. Our founders, Rob and Sean, along with our tutors have been making the most of this summer by spending plenty of time on and in the ocean, be it to surf, spearfish, or boat across the channel to Catalina Island. We will be seeing off our managerial staff on an annual leadership trip at the end of July, and look forward to building an even stronger team to help our students through the remainder of the summer and next school year.
If you would like more information regarding our summer tutoring services, or you would like to sign up your son or daughter for summer help to prepare for the upcoming school year, please feel welcome to contact us at info@studyhut.com. Enjoy your summer!
Here is a comprehensive list of programs to help your student stay ahead this fall.
– SAT and ACT classes both one-on-one and group courses. Our group course for SAT’s and ACT’s start after the July 4th weekend.
– Spanish 1/2 and Spanish 3/4 Workshops
– Elementary to Middle School and Middle School to High School Transition Sessions
– Algebra 1, Geometry, and Alg 2 Prep Classes which will start at the end of July. Joey will be teaching some of the courses in the Manhattan Beach Location.
– General Summer School Help
We are open Monday-Friday and you can contact our managers to book appointments for summer. Manhattan Beach Location: Kristen@studyhut.com – (310)546-2408, Redondo Beach Location: Justin@studyhut.com – (310)540-5888, and our El Segundo Location: Alex@studyhut.com (310)648-8526
1. Start Early! – This is the most important one. The internet provides plenty of ways to waste your study time, but you’ll be happy you stayed away from Netflix and Reddit when the final finally comes.
2. Study in Chunks – Your brain works best in 50 minute intervals. You may feel studious after your 6 hour study marathon, but a tired brain doesn’t absorb information like a fresh one. Take 5-10 minutes breaks every hour to make sure you’re making the most of your study time.
3. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place – Studying in bed may sound like a good idea, but once you’re in bed, so will a nap. Find a place that works for you. It should be somewhere where you can focus, spread out your notes, and get in a studying groove. And if you get sick of one place, switch it up!
4. Know Your Teacher – Ask questions, take notes, review old worksheets. Figure out what your teacher thinks is important because that’s what will show up on the final.
5. Study Alone – Start with what you don’t know. Review your old tests, quizzes, and homeworks, and take notes on what you missed. Then spend some time on your own with each of these topics. Write down any questions you have because the next step is…
6. Study in Groups – Once you’ve figured out your own strengths and weaknesses in each subject, form a study group. Here you can ask questions you had on your own and answer some of your study buddies’. Explaining concepts and hearing them explained in new ways will strengthen your understanding of the material.
7. Exercise – Exercise increases blood flow to the brain, and you may need all the brain blood you can get for finals week. It’s also a great way to take a break from book to soak up some sun.
8. Sleep – It may be tempting to cram all night, but
it may not help as much as you think. Give your brain a rest! When the night before the test comes around, be confident in the studying you’ve been doing all week and get some extra sleep.
1. During the school day, teachers’ attention is spread among many students. A tutor can create a targeted plan for your child’s specific needs.
2. Today, kids have increased access to technology, busy parents, and have extremely busy schedules, all of which can potentially distract them from their studies. Time with a tutor gives them the time to focus only on homework or studying.
3. Tutors have the time to explain a concept in several different ways, instead of having to move class along at a certain pace.
4. Tutoring can also teach study skills, which can then be applied to what’s going on in school.
5. Even for students who are doing well in school, tutoring can provide a competitive edge to do even better.
6. Summer tutoring can prepare students for upcoming difficult subjects, such as algebra, or reinforce what was already learned that year so September isn’t spent playing catch-up.
7. For high school students, individual or small group tutoring can be essential for APs and SAT subject tests.
8. For younger kids, tutoring can help boost standardized test scores.
9. A tutor can be a useful sounding board for an upcoming project, paper, or exam, and can help prevent the stress and frustration of leaving an assignment for the night before.
10. Whether it’s third grade math, high school chemistry, or middle school history, tutors have expertise in their subject and can make it more engaging and maybe even fun.
“A perfect tutoring session is a thing of beauty. There’s no formula for recreating it every time, but it happens more and more often at Study Hut these days. Tutors and tutees are in mid-season form by this time in the year – the early-semester inertia long past and the end-of-semester burnout still months away. We’ve settled into the school year, developing our own rhythms and rapports with all our Study Hut students. It’s perfect tutoring season.
No two perfect sessions look exactly the same; there are too many contributing factors to consider. Some students are panicked, struggling to finish cramming for that test they kept putting off; some students are relaxed, looking forward to another weekly session with the same tutor they’ve been working with for the past 6 months; some are on their way to SAT tutoring, dreaming of the day they will strut their stuff at college, applying all their Hut study skills to everything from Bio 101 to Shakespearean sonnets to intramural softball. Some are terrified at the mere mention of numbers, others are enthralled by the simple joys of deriving or integrating. Still others are history sponges, seeking to soak in as many dates and elections and revolutions as possible, baffled by some of their peers’ classic refrain: “Why do we have learn this? It already happened.”
This variety is what makes working at Study Hut so engaging. It is a constant process: evaluating a student’s interests and needs, weaknesses and strengths, passions and quirks. Only by getting to know each student – asking them about their day, their favorite color, and their life’s goals – can we craft these elusive perfect sessions.
As we begin to understand our tutees, we get better at tailoring our sessions to their own specific needs and goals. This is the constant process of creating perfect sessions. We may not achieve perfection every time (and some students may make it more difficult than others), but even when we fail we do pretty good job at making learning happen.”
Hope this is useable and feel free to make any changes you want!
Ask any high school student, or their parents, what they consider the most important things to work on when applying for college and most of the time the answer is GPA and SAT scores. While your high school GPA and SAT scores are extremely important factors in getting into college, in many cases, there exists a 3rd factor; a factor can get you into your reach schools or get you rejected from target schools. That important 3rd factor is your extracurricular activities. It should be stated that different school systems weigh extracurriculars different than others. For example, UC’s put a lot of weight into an applicant’s extracurricular activities, while the Cal-State Schools (SDSU, Cal Poly, long beach, etc) essentially do not. Although if you intend on going to a Cal-State, you should still invest time into extracurricular activities in case you change your mind about your college destination.
I cannot emphasize how important these application builders are, as they act as a double edged sword: having many activities significantly helps you, while a lack of them significantly hurts you. Colleges want to accept unique well-rounded students. They prefer not to fill their student bodies with mundane cookie cutter students. They want their student body to be diverse and full of students that have experienced more of the world than exists outside the schoolroom. Extracurriculars demonstrate this to colleges. They show leadership skills, your personality, and other qualities not measured with test scores and grade averages. They can take a student with less than average grades, and transform him/her into an interesting and accomplished applicant. As I stated earlier, the reverse is true. Just as a lot of strong extracurricular activities can say a lot of about you, so can a lack of them. Having no strong extracurricular activities makes you appear dull, boring, and uninspired; especially when you consider the fact that many of the other applicants you are competing with have them.
The best part about extracurricular activities is that they are abundant and easy to get involved with. They range from holding positions in clubs and other organizations, to volunteer work, to sports outside of school, to community events, and in many cases to your own hobbies. Do you feel particularly strong about an issue, subject, or cause? Chances are there is an organization you can get involved with that addresses it. When preparing for college apps don’t get too obsessed with your GPA and test scores that you neglect the 3rd piece of the application pie: extracurricular activities.
Here at The Study Hut sometimes saying goodbye is a happy occasion. As the summer is coming to an end so we say goodbye to a few of our tutors. Not to worry! Their departure is not due to sub-par performance or conflicts between other tutors, but because they are once again joining the ranks of US college students or are exploring the world in hopes of expanding human knowledge.
We are happy to see one tutor off to Columbia University this fall. Jenna who has worked with us this last year came to us already with some teaching experience. She had taught and substituted for a few of the lower elementary grades after finishing school. Now she is going for her Masters degree in education. We are always happy people using their skills to teach other and help others.
Another tutor will also be leaving not just us, the whole United States. Jenny, after a few years helping kids in our Redondo office, is packing up and leaving for Australia. A marine-bio major, Jenny spent time studying sharks while in school. Now she plans on continuing that hobby/love. She will be camping out on the remote coast of Australia tracking, recording, and studying the local shark behavior. After a few months she will then be attending graduate school in Australia.
We wish Jenna and Jenny the best of luck on their new adventures.
It’s summer, and most kids cringe at the thought of spending their carefree days
in tutoring. However, a few hours here and there can help students stay sharp and
get one prepared for the coming year. This is especially true when it comes to reading
comprehension.
We live in a digital age, and many kids think anything over 140 characters seems
needlessly detailed. But reading comprehension is a skill that influences performance
in nearly every other subject. If your child is scoring low, it’s an issue better addressed
sooner than later.
We offer multiple approaches to reading comprehension for kids of all ages. Subjects/
topics include:
Identifying the main idea
Summarizing articles and passages
Paraphrasing
Making inferences and identifying faulty logic
Identifying unknown words and expanding vocabulary
Formulating summaries and responses
We have age-appropriate materials and can work with students of all levels.
Reading comprehension is important at all levels of schooling, but there are a few critical
ages to keep in mind. If your student is going into middle school or high school next year,
both curriculum and expectations are about to change dramatically.
It’s one thing to parrot the main points of an article, book or essay, but it’s quite another
to internalize and think critically about the material. Around middle school, essays
become as much about content as form, and your student will be consistently tested on
their ability to respond to a text in their own voice. Now is the time to prepare them for
that.
Call to schedule a session, and you’ll see the difference it makes to have an experienced
tutor working one-on-one with your student. Who knows – maybe they’ll even start
bringing current event articles to the dinner table or chatting with dad about The Great
Gatsby while they play Xbox. Dare to dream…
