For almost 50 years, the SAT has played a pivotal role in the college admissions process. The upcoming transition from the traditional paper-and-pencil format to a digital, adaptive SAT marks one of the most significant changes since its inception in 1926. The Class of 2025 will be the first cohort of U.S. students to undergo both the PSAT and SAT in a digital, adaptive format.
Early acceptance rates at these institutions showed a significant advantage over regular decision rates, according to U.S. News data. Though crafting a standout college application can be a time-consuming and stressful process, submitting an application in the fall, well before the typical winter deadline for regular admissions, is possible.Read on to find out more.
While we’re pleased to see evidence of academic rebounding, fully regaining lost ground will require students to make above-average progress going forward. The federal government has provided nearly $200 billion in funding for schools to address challenges associated with the pandemic, with $22 billion specifically dedicated to learning recovery using evidence-based interventions.
Does your child need academic help outside the classroom? Tutoring might be a good option. But you may also hear about academic “coaches” who help teach kids learning strategies.
What’s the difference? Which is best suited for your child?
There’s no official distinction between what makes one person a tutor and someone else a coach. Sometimes it’s just a matter of marketing.
Instructors may call themselves “coaches” because some students may not like the idea of being “tutored.” That’s because some students may associate being tutored with having some kind of weakness. But they may be open to being “coached,” like an athlete, to become “even better.” This is especially true for middle-schoolers and high-schoolers.
There tend to be some basic differences between the two groups, though. The information below can give you an idea of what they are.
Tutoring vs. Academic coaching — Basic approach
Tutors tend to focus on building concrete skills and helping students with what they immediately need to keep up with schoolwork.
Similar to a sports coach, an academic coach tends to work on strategies to help kids succeed. They can help kids develop a more organized approach to learning and schoolwork. They may also focus on strategies to help kids with motivation.
What a typical session may look like
A tutor may zero in on specific skills that are giving a student trouble. A math tutor, for instance, may focus on long division, going over assigned homework and helping the student get ready for upcoming tests.
Tutors can help kids work on specific skills during the summer, too. They may do practice drills so a student can keep up on skills and be ready for the new school year.
Coaches working with younger kids may help them organize their backpack. Coaches might also show kids how to create color-coded systems for notebooks and folders.
Middle- and high-schoolers may learn to create schedules that will help them tackle long-term projects. The coach may share tips and strategies about how to stay focused and take tests more effectively.
Who offers it
There’s no official credential for being a tutor. Many tutors are current or retired teachers who work independently or as part of a commercial tutoring program. But even high school students can be tutors.
Some tutors are certified to help kids with learning differences like dyslexia. They may be certified through programs like Wilson or Orton–Gillingham, or may be an educational service like Vint Hill Educational Services. Online tutoring and tutoring software are options, too.
There’s no official credential for being a learning coach or academic coach. Many are current or retired teachers, or they may have some background in education or psychology.
Some commercial tutoring centers are starting to offer more “coaching-style” programs. But they still tend to refer to these programs as tutoring services.
Type of student who could benefit
Tutoring could be a good option for students struggling to stay at grade level. It could also benefit students who need help reaching academic goals in one or more specific areas like reading, writing, science, or math. However, some students with learning differences may need to see someone more specialized, like an educational therapist.
Coaching could be helpful for students who have certain skills but lack the motivation, organization, or strategies they need to apply those skills. Coaching could also benefit students who need help with staying focused, such as kids with ADHD. Athletes with positive sports experiences often respond well to a coaching model.
Grade-schoolers who need to learn good study habits could benefit from an organizational coach. Older students who need help with prioritizing, staying on task, or even prepping for the ACT or SAT could also benefit from an academic coach.
Duration of services
Tutoring is sometimes used on a “spot” basis. This could be to help a student through a rough patch or with a specific skill, like solving quadratic equations. But tutoring often continues throughout the length of a particular course, such as algebra or chemistry.
Some coaches sell “packages” that are designed to lay the basic groundwork students need to succeed within a limited window of time. This can be anywhere from 3 to 6 months, or beyond.
Rates
Rates vary by area but are comparable to those for academic coaches.
Rates vary by area but are comparable to those for tutors.
In real life, the line between coaching and tutoring can be blurry. Some tutors, like coaches, may focus on learning strategies. Some coaches, like tutors, will help students tackle homework. And some coaches may not even call themselves “coaches.”
Once you know what kind of help your child needs, a good way to find the right person is to seek referrals from the school or other parents. Then interview each candidate carefully about what the basic approach would be. Having a list of key questions to ask can be helpful.
And be sure to let the person you hire know about your child’s strengths and weaknesses . That will let the coach or tutor do a better job of helping your child.
Vint Hill Educational Services offers academic coaching for students who have difficulty getting motivated, staying focused, or keeping up in school. With backgrounds in counseling, mentoring, teaching, and special education, our coaches are highly experienced at working with youth and helping students overcome a wide spectrum of challenges.
Academic coaching is especially beneficial for individuals with attentional problems, low executive functioning, or learning or cognitive disabilities—though it is also valuable for those struggling to deal with the ordinary stressors of understanding complex information, planning assignments, studying for exams, or transitioning to college. Students who work with an academic coach typically require guidance and assistance in:
· Getting and staying organized
· Planning coursework and managing time effectively
· Starting and completing schoolwork
· Studying and reading with proficiency
· Managing stress, anxiety, and distractibility
· Balancing academic and personal responsibilities
· Preparing for tests
Our coaches complete assessments to identify the student’s challenges, strengths, goals, and learning style. They then create customized plans that integrate a variety of tools and techniques to help build confidence and improve school performance. Strategies include positive reinforcement, setting achievable goals, optimizing skills, breaking down tasks, creating a supportive environment, and tracking progress.
We select the best coach for your child and provide a coach profile for you to review and approve. The coach matching process considers the coach’s education, experience, and personality, as well as the student’s issues, schedule, and preferred location (e.g., home, office, public library). Each session is one hour in length and one-to-one for individualized support. Parents receive access to our online Teachworks system, allowing them to review coaching session notes, receive session email reminders, and keep track of used and remaining session hours.
The role of executive functioning in learning has been researched for many decades, and we now know that executive skills play important roles in literacy learning, and especially in successful reading comprehension. In the book by Kelly Cartwright, Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension: A Guide for Educators (2015, Guilford Press), the author explores this connection in detail and provides suggestions for supporting students who have weak executive skills.
Cartwright explains:
“Children who have difficulties with reading comprehension, despite having age-appropriate word reading skills, have lower levels of executive skills than their peers with better comprehension. These discoveries are important for all educators because reading comprehension is the foundation for all other learning in school: students cannot understand, enjoy, or respond to literature without effective reading comprehension; likewise, students cannot gather new information from science, math, or social studies texts when they don’t understand what they read. (p.3)”
What are executive function skills and how do they support reading comprehension?
Cartwright suggests we think of the term executive skills as an umbrella term that refers to a set of mental tools we use to manage tasks and achieve goals, and that these skills can be grouped into three core areas: cognitive flexibility, working memory, and inhibition.
Executive skills involve regulating one’s own thinking to achieve desired goals. Cartwright notes that “Executive skills emerge early in life and develop across childhood and beyond. Even in very young students, executive skills enable the self-control that is necessary to remember classroom routines, pay attention to a teacher’s direction, and inhibit inappropriate behaviors.”
Here is a summary of how these core skills affect reading comprehension (p. 8-9):
Cognitive Flexibility: is the ability to shift attention from one activity to another or to actively switch back and forth between important components of a task. When reading, skilled comprehenders actively shift focus between many things, such as word and text meanings, letter-sound information, and syntactic (sentence grammar) information.
Working Memory: is the capacity for holding information in mind while working with part of that information. When building text meaning, a good comprehender must keep in mind the various text ideas presented, note the causal links between them, and update the meaning as he encounters new ideas in text.
Inhibition: is the ability to resist engaging in a habitual response as well as the ability to ignore distracting information – i.e., to think before acting. Good comprehenders must inhibit activation of inappropriate word meanings or irrelevant connections to ideas encountered in texts.
Cartwright also addresses additional, more complex executive skills:
Planning: involves setting and working toward a goal
Organizing: involves ordering and sequencing information or subtasks in ways that support a common goal
You cannot reach a goal without a plan, and you can do so most effectively if you are aware of the steps you need to take, in the proper order, to ensure that your goal is met. These two skills work hand-in-hand to support reading comprehension. Good readers begin with a plan and goals to understand and they organize their approach to reading.
In addition, Cartwright points out that the level of a student’s executive skills will also affect his motivational or social-emotional processes – i.e., differences in students’ executive skills will be reflected in both their cognitive and social-emotional ability. For example:
Students with strong executive functioning ability are able to effectively manage and control their own behavior, regulate thinking and learning, regulate their emotional processes, have peer relations, and have strong emotional processes.
Students who are impulsive and emotionally reactive have difficulty controlling their own behavior, interacting with peers, sticking to classroom routines, focusing on task, and ignoring irrelevant information.
Here are some of the chapters in Cartwright’s book:
Plans and Goals: Getting Ready to Read
Organization: Why Text and Reader Organization Matter
Cognitive Flexibility: Juggling Multiple Aspects of Reading
Working Memory: Holding and Linking Ideas in Mind While Reading
Inhibition and Impulse Control: Resisting Distractions to Support Comprehension
Social Understanding: The importance of Mind Reading for Reading Comprehension
Other Resources Related to Executive Functioning and Reading
If you are interested in this topic, it is highly recommend you review the work of Lynn Meltzer at The Research Institute for Learning and Development. Her book Promoting Executive Function in the Classroom (2010, Guilford Press) provides very useful suggestions for understanding and assessing executive function processes and creating a classroom wide executive function culture that fosters strategy use for reading. Meltzer has chapters on goal setting, planning, organizing, remembering, flexible problem solving, self-monitoring, and emotional self-regulation. Meltzer and her colleagues have also developed the SMARTS Executive Function curriculum designed to help middle and high school students who have weak executive skills.
Here are a few other sources to learn more about the connection between executive skills and reading comprehension:
Why Executive Function is a Vital Stepping-Stone For Kids’ Ability to Learn: blog article at KQED News
The Reading Brain: Executive Function Hard at Work: article at LDA of America website
5 Ways Executive Functioning Issues Can Impact Reading: article at the Understood for Learning and Attention website
DOES YOUR CHILD STRUGGLE WITH STAYING ORGANIZED, PLANNING SCHOOLWORK, OR STUDYING FOR EXAMS? CONTACT US FOR A FREE COACHING ASSESSMENT.
Vint Hill Educational Services offers academic coaching for students who have difficulty getting motivated, staying focused, or keeping up in school. With backgrounds in counseling, mentoring, teaching, and special education, our coaches are highly experienced at working with youth and helping students overcome a wide spectrum of challenges.
Academic coaching is especially beneficial for individuals with attentional problems, low executive functioning, or learning or cognitive disabilities—though it is also valuable for those struggling to deal with the ordinary stressors of understanding complex information, planning assignments, studying for exams, or transitioning to college. Students who work with an academic coach typically require guidance and assistance in:
· Getting and staying organized
· Planning coursework and managing time effectively
· Starting and completing schoolwork
· Studying and reading with proficiency
· Managing stress, anxiety, and distractibility
· Balancing academic and personal responsibilities
· Preparing for tests
Our coaches complete assessments to identify the student’s challenges, strengths, goals, and learning style. They then create customized plans that integrate a variety of tools and techniques to help build confidence and improve school performance. Strategies include positive reinforcement, setting achievable goals, optimizing skills, breaking down tasks, creating a supportive environment, and tracking progress.
We select the best coach for your child and provide a coach profile for you to review and approve. The coach matching process considers the coach’s education, experience, and personality, as well as the student’s issues, schedule, and preferred location (e.g., home, office, public library). Each session is one hour in length and one-to-one for individualized support. Parents receive access to our online Teachworks system, allowing them to review coaching session notes, receive session email reminders, and keep track of used and remaining session hours. For more info, click here.
As an organization that Vint Hill Educational Services reveres, the National Education Association (NEA) is more than 3 million people—educators, students, activists, workers, parents, neighbors, friends—who believe in opportunity for all students and in the power of public education to transform lives and create a more just and inclusive society.
NEA and its leaders and members in public schools across the country, have joined with families, communities, school districts, and other key partners, to implement a powerful tool to achieve “the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world.” Community schools provide not only tremendous opportunities for learning and success for students, but also offer hope, opportunity, and transformation to entire communities.
The Community Schools Model advanced by NEA includes six pillars of practice. Unlike most public education models, these pillars are adaptable to the needs of an individual school’s students, staff, families, and community and pay particular attention to creating, supporting, and sustaining a culturally relevant and responsive climate. NEA was instrumental in ensuring the inclusion of two pillars—high-quality teaching and learning and inclusive leadership.
Educators provide a rich and varied academic program allowing students to acquire both foundational and advanced knowledge and skills in many content areas. Students learn with challenging, culturally relevant materials that address their learning needs and expand their experience. They also learn how to analyze and understand the unique experiences and perspectives of others. The curriculum embraces all content areas including the arts, second languages, and physical education. Teachers and education support professionals (ESP) are engaged in developing effective programs for language instruction for English learners and immigrant students. These schools offer rigorous courses such as Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate. They provide learning and enrichment activities before and after the regular school day, including sports, the arts, and homework assistance. Schools address the needs of parents and families through programs such as English-as-a-Second-Language classes, GED preparation, and job training programs.
Teachers are fully licensed, knowledgeable about their content, and skillful in their practice. Instructional time focuses on learning rather than testing. Individual student needs are identified and learning opportunities are designed to address them. Higher-order thinking skills are at the core of instruction so that all students acquire problem solving, critical thinking, and reasoning skills. Educators work collaboratively to plan lessons, analyze student work, and adjust curriculum as required. Experienced educators work closely with novices as mentors, coaches, and “guides on the side,” sharing their knowledge and expertise. ESP members take part in professional learning experiences and are consulted and collaborate when developing plans to improve instruction. Together, educators identify the methods and approaches that work and change those that do not meet student needs.
Leadership teams with educators, the community school coordinator, and other school staff share the responsibility of school operations with the principal. This leadership team ensures that the community school strategy remains central in the decision-making process.
Community school educators emphasize positive relationships and interactions and model these through their own behavior. Negative behaviors and truancy are acknowledged and addressed in ways that hold students accountable while showing them they are still valued members of the school community. All members of the faculty and staff are responsible for ensuring a climate where all students can learn. Restorative behavior practices such as peer mediation, community service, and post-conflict resolution help students learn from their mistakes and foster positive, healthy school climates where respect and compassion are core principles. Zero-tolerance practices leading to suspension and expulsion are avoided.
Families, parents, caregivers, and community members are partners in creating dynamic, flexible community schools. Their engagement is not related to a specific project or program, but is on-going and extends beyond volunteerism to roles in decision making, governance, and advocacy. Both ESP and teachers are part of developing family engagement strategies, and they are supported through professional learning opportunities. Their voices are critical to articulating and achieving the school’s overall mission and goals. When families and educators work together, students are more engaged learners who earn higher grades and enroll in more challenging classes; student attendance and grade and school completion rates improve.
Community school educators recognize that students often come to school with challenges that impact their ability to learn, explore, and develop in the classroom. Because learning does not happen in isolation, community schools provide meals, health care, mental health counseling, and other services before, during, and after school. Staff members support the identification of services that children need. These wraparound services are integrated into the fabric of the school that follows the Whole Child tenets. Connections to the community are critically important, so support services and referrals are available for families and other community members.
To learn more about Community Schools, click the link below.
VHES offers online mock SAT and ACT tests Saturdays at 9:00 am through Lessonspace, a teaching platform that enables our proctors to oversee virtual exams and gauge students' test readiness. Upon registering for mock tests, students will receive a test packet in the mail that includes the following:
ACT/SAT answer sheet
ACT/SAT test booklet
Testing instructions
Please sign up no later than Monday during the week of the mock test. The day before each test, students will receive an emailed link to join the virtually proctored test.
Upon completion of the test, parents and students receive a 9-page diagnostic report showing how the student is performing in each dimension of the SAT or ACT. This detailed report is used to establish a baseline score, is the basis for test-prep planning, and is instrumental in helping us customize a tutoring program that addresses the most pertinent test sections. For students taking both the ACT and SAT, we also provide a concordance chart with test recommendations. See what our baseline test reports look like: ACT and SAT. There is a $25 test registration fee.
Register for a mock test by clicking on a specific test date below.
Mock ACT test dates:
Mock SAT test dates:
Visit our Mock Testing page to learn more.
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