There are two types of “New Clients” at Study Hut Tutoring. There are the clients who call us when something has gone wrong, such as a bad test grade or some missing assignments they need help with. The other type of client is the proactive type; this client calls the Hut way in advance, getting times with a tutor well before a big test or Final exam.
These proactive clients often cite “getting an edge” as the reason for calling. Whether they hear about it from a friend at Parras Middle School, or a counselor at RUHS, people are picking up on the buzz, and they are calling Study Hut in Redondo Beach to get the best local tutors available. These clients often call and request a tutor by name, because that is the type of reputation that the Hut has.
Often, groups of friends sign up at the same time. If a PV High Volleyball player calls to inquire about pricing and availability, it does not surprise us at all when two of her fellow Sea Kings call for tutoring later that afternoon. We have quite a few PV and Redondo athletes, including players from the football, basketball, gold, cross country, track, and water polo teams (and more, too!).
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.
It’s that time again. SAT season! This can be a time of tremendous anxiety for many, but it doesn’t have to be. Here at the Study Hut we work to prepare students for conquering this test. We focus on vanquishing the SAT and getting our students excited about college. Our approach is multifaceted and familiarizes students with the exam. Often our students are most nervous about the math section of the SAT. The Hut provides students with comprehensive materials to dust off older material and reinforce newer concepts. The most important thing is that students are familiar with the structure of the test, especially with the math section. When they know what to expect, students approach the SAT with more confidence and are more successful. We review everything from common denominators to parabolas!
Study Hut tutors will work side-by-side students to get them ready for the next stage of their lives! We will help make this potentially nerve racking time into one of excitement. Many of our students see their scores jump after preparing with us. We have many Redondo High and Palos Verdes High school students in our group course, as well as taking advantage of our one-on-one services. No matter their preference, our approach minimizes the stress and makes SAT prep more manageable. College is just around the corner!
Spring semester is underway at Palos Verdes High School, and for sophomores in the AVID program, this means exposure to a whole new style of testing. As many of us know, the SAT is a very different type of test. Likewise, the PSAT is meant to serve as preliminary exposure to this different testing style for 10th grade students. For most sophomores, the PSAT is the first test they have ever seen in which there is a penalty for guessing incorrectly.
On a typical exam in history class or biology, a student is encouraged to answer each and every question to the best of his or her abilities. Any question the student is unsure about should be guessed at using strategies such as elimination. The same is not true of the SAT and the PSAT – on these tests, students must determine their own confidence level on a given problem, and must answer two questions:
– Is this question worth spending time considering?
– Can I eliminate one or more answers with certainty?
The truth is that most students have tremendous difficulty with answering these questions, which is why so many students need training for the SAT.
PV High AVID students have a huge advantage, then, because they are exposed to this style of test at an earlier age. It gives students more time to adjust to the style and become acclimated to the scoring system. Moreover, these students receive this training for free, as a perk of being part of such a prestigious program, and because of the excellent relationship between Study Hut Tutoring and the Palos Verdes High School AVID program. It is no wonder than dozens of students are turned away from the program each year, and it should come as no surprise that the application process for 8th graders is so competitive.
What began as a modest, experimental finals-season gesture became one of the busiest and most auspicious events that the Study Hut has ever participated in. Early in January, the Hut got in touch with Mary Lou Cordaro, who works with the library at West High School. The Hut volunteered its services for any West students ambitious enough to sign up for extra tutoring on the Friday and Saturday (January 21 and 22) before exams. A few tutors from each of the Hut’s branches signed up to work at “stations” according to subject, which students could move among during the three hours per day that we would be there. We expected a slight crowd, an atmosphere perhaps even casual (or as casual as possible with finals looming ahead). But Mary Lou, one of the most enthusiastic educators we have ever had the privilege to work with, tirelessly promoted the event until the roster had racked up the names of over one hundred students eager for all the help they could get their hands on.
Suddenly, it was all hands on deck. Subject stations were set up throughout the library’s spacious first floor. Textbooks were handed out. The library doors opened like floodgates, and the place was teeming with students. All grades were represented, and for three hours each day the students moved among the tables and classrooms to garner whatever study tips they could. To those students who stayed long, paid attention, and were reluctant to leave even at the two-minute warning, tutors passed out vouchers for free hours of final exam tutoring. Thanks to the students, tutors, and of course, Mary Lou, those were two of the most fruitful days in Hut history. After it was over, many students redeemed their vouchers before their exams, and several of them have begun to stay on for regular help.
Before January 21, while we had been looking forward to the event, we had not expected such bewildering success. It was a great educational experience, not only for the students, but also for the tutors, many of whom had never worked with such large groups before. And it was fun, to boot! As the Hut plans for its future, we are looking forward to many more tutoring opportunities like it. Thank you to the Mary Lou, the tutors, and the students who made this first one so great!
With the increasing amount of accessible technology and decreasing amount of human attention spans, people get bored easily. Nintendo DS’s, Kindles, and iPads are meant to serve people with an immediate means of pocket-size entertainment. But what some people forget is the simplicity of those things we use every day: our words. The challenge of a cross word puzzle is usually more intriguing than mindlessly staring at a solitaire screen and the reward of a completed puzzle is oh so blissful. This particular brand of brain teaser is not only great for killing time while waiting for your parents to pick you up from practice, but also conducive to a learning environment, such as the Study Hut. You see, crossword puzzles require a certain out-of-the-box mindset to be solved. This is helpful to students who are preparing to take standardized tests, such as the SAT or ACT. These standardized tests, at their core, are not about testing intelligence. Rather, they test students on whether they can adapt to a certain style of thinking and deductive reasoning in order to answer their specific questions.
For the crossword novice, the Los Angeles Times or USA Today crosswords are the best because they allow the user to see when they are correct or incorrect. Also, the Los Angles Times crossword puzzles start with their easiest puzzles on Monday and get progressively more difficult through Sunday. This is a great way to spend down time because it increases mental acuity and also builds a stronger vocabulary, another reason why it would improve standardized testing scores.
Here is an example from a Monday clue in the LA Times: “One quarter of M” (3 letters.)
For this clue, the puzzle draws upon your knowledge to recognize this as a math problem and to solve using Roman numerals. Since “M” is 1,000. One quarter of that is 250. C = 100 and L = 50. The correct answer is: CCL.
Here is an example from a Sunday clue in the LA Times: “It might have a nut at each end.” (5 letters.)
If you’ve done enough crosswords, you can figure out that they don’t mean the kind of nuts that you eat. Drawing on homonyms for nut, another type of nut might be the tool used with bolts. Since it is 1 more letter than bolt, the answer is “Ubolt.”
The mentality employed by crossword puzzles makes one think outside of the box, using verbal puns, pop culture knowledge, mathematics, history, and anything else we use our brains for. Being able to adapt to this thinking style is a sure way to keep your brain sharp, acute, and ever ready for the perfect riddle!
At The Hut, we know that all students learn differently and come to tutoring with unique expectations. For those high achieving high school students who are immersed in Advanced Placement courses, SAT practice, and extracurricular activities, time management is key.
Junior and senior year of high school are the most academically demanding years of the four. This is the time when students are mastering those tough classes (AP Euro, Bio, US, Chem, Spanish…) and special skills (soccer, music, community service…) that will make them competitive at the university of their choice. With little sleep and less free time during the day, what these teens need is a schedule.
Mira Costa junior Danny came to The Study Hut in need of a little planning. With a full schedule of electives and extracurriculars, Danny had no trouble learning the material; he just needed to find the time to do it. During tutoring sessions, Danny and I spent time organizing his schedule for the week – ensuring that he would have time to do the activities he loves as well as the focused studying that he needs to ace information-dense AP Biology. With a realistic amount of time blocked out every day for biology review, and the creation of specific goals for the completion of assignments, Danny’s test scores immediately improved. With the continued use of these organization techniques, as well as weekly concept review at The Study Hut, Danny’s grades are steadily improving. By the time of the AP Biology exam, he had drastically improved his grade in the class and his ability to retain large amounts of information.
One hour of one-on-one tutoring for high school students is not only an excellent way to clarify difficult concepts, it is also a way to keep busy students on track all week long. Short-term study techniques will prepare a student for an upcoming test, but organization and planning skills with a long-term focus are the key to improving a student’s ability to learn information, retain information, and succeed in the analytic-based learning that is in their future. The commitment to a regular schedule allows students to anticipate assignments and plan their schedules accordingly. This reduces stress, which in turn makes test-taking less of an ordeal. Less panic means better decisions and higher scores. Period.
If a student can stick to a study plan and stop relying on last-minute cramming, they are guaranteed to see positive results. And a little more sleep never hurts either…
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 »
