Chemistry can be very difficult. Students have so many things to memorize: rules for naming compounds, charges for different elements on the periodic table, whether or not a solute and solvent will form a precipitate. All this information can quickly become overwhelming for students, especially as the year progresses and concepts build upon one another. It is helpful for students to go over chemistry outside of class with a tutor to review concepts the teacher may not have explained thoroughly enough.
Chemistry tutoring is especially helpful when covering more difficult and complex topics. Jason worked with his student, who had fallen behind in chemistry class and was struggling to catch up. They started with the basics: families in the periodic table, elemental charges, ionic vs. covalent bonds. These building blocks helped the student begin to understand the higher-level concepts. It was no longer a mystery why certain compounds formed and other elements could not combine, or why an anion was formed instead of a cation. Now that what elements came together to form compounds was no longer a mystery, it was time to move on to nomenclature. Together, Jason and his student went through all the rules for naming different kinds of compounds. There are different rules for ionic and covalent compounds. They also reviewed how to tell which version of certain metals formed, and how to tell when to use an –ic or –ous ending. All the extra review really helped and Jason’s student was able to bring his grade up twenty percent!
