Why Isn't My Child's Test Score Improving?

Sometimes a test prep journey is straightforward, and sometimes it's not. It's a worrisome moment when a student takes their first non-just-for-practice exam after starting prep with me, because I know that no matter how good things seem to be going, there is still the possibility there is no improvement on that first test, or, horrors, the score actually decreases.

Every parent has a timeline, a point where their largess will run out if there's not a quantifiable uptick in score. It's my job to make those scores increase! I literally have no other task here (and yet I can't control the outcome. Fascinatingly maddening job I have.)

Here's a tale of two parents: one parent came to me looking to have his daughter take the Lower ISEE in the next year. He knew it would take time for growth, he said. Fast-forward 2 months, and he thought it would be a good idea to have her take one now, just to see...and the score was the same. The parent, disappointed, stopped the tutoring. Another parent slogged through over 2 years of little to no test score improvement. Honestly, I kept wondering why they didn't fire me. But now in the past couple of months, it's like all those seeds that were planted are all sprouting at once. Total butterfly moment..my student is Athena springing fully formed from the head of Zeus. This girl used to take 25 minutes to answer 5 reading comp questions and get most of them wrong..last night she did 30 questions in the same amount of time and only missed 1. Her parents thanked me, but I have to turn it right back on them..it's their patience that made the difference.

I promise you that the test score is not not improving because I did nothing to help your child. I'm not selling snake oil, and I'm genuinely involved and active in the process of teaching. I know the material, I have many teaching resources at my disposal, and I can point to many instances where happy parents sing my praises at the result.

Based on years of observation, I've identified 2 reasons for the test prep stall or dip in scores. It's likely your student is experiencing one or both of them:

Their brain or attitude is resisting learning the material they need. I call these Teflon ideas..they just don't stick! I can't count the number of times I had an outstanding lesson with a student, everybody leaves happy, they're getting the answers on a particular skill right...and then they encounter the material later, and it's like the lesson never took place.

So I reteach, think hard about whether the old method or a new method or a combination would help, even become inspired with a new way to teach the material, feel so glad I had this problem because this next technique feels so promising...only to have the same arc take place. It's nobody's fault. I have Teflon syndrome too...we all do. Earlier this year I was practicing SAT math, self-teaching, and I went through the same exact thing.

And that led me to a revelation: we're really bad at the things we're not naturally good at! Sometimes there's a reason we're not good at something, and it's not because we weren't exposed to it already.

In the case of Teflon ideas, you have to accept it and let it go and take the hit to the test score, or the student needs to do a lot of homework and self-study and be really determined. The tutor can't really help at that point in 1 hour a week. Or at least, I could, but it isn't practical if there is any kind of timeline or expectation of more from our lessons.

They've replaced old problems with new problems. The single most common example happens when students learn how to mentally work through something, and now they can get it right but it takes so much time and energy that they can't finish the test and/or they are mentally tired and start making careless mistakes on questions they would've gotten right before. To rectify this, I would dispense situation-appropriate activities for homework to build those brain muscles and stamina, or develop a test-day time-management strategy with the student. It could take months or even a year to see improvement, but prognosis is good if we stay the course.

Another way this plays out is that students can't correctly apply the new information, and they earnestly use it where it's not applicable, disregarding the common sense they once had. This is immaturity, part of a steep learning curve. The awareness on my part to notice it and address it with a talk about the bigger picture - and time and growth - is the fix. There's just no timeline for brain maturation, that's the hard part on this one. There's no telling when that flower will bloom. But if we keep providing the right circumstances, it will bloom in its time.

These kinds of problems are where I feel I really start earning my keep. It's where things get interesting, because I use my past experience to first of all notice the new problem, and second, know what to do about it. I'm up for it if y'all are.

Have any test prep woes you'd like me to weigh in on? Contact me!

Lisa.Walter.Tutor@gmail.com

281-352-2863