The impact of tutoring after a natural disaster: Alexander Tutoring offers help to LA in it’s time of need
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Throughout January, a series of 14 wildfires ravaged the city of Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Covering more than 23,000 acres, these fires rank as some of the deadliest and most destructive that the city has ever seen.
The fires displaced thousands of people from their homes while damaging infrastructure and important community spaces, including schools. At least a dozen schools were damaged or destroyed by the fires, leaving thousands of students without a stable place to continue to learn and study.
Emergency education services were put in place to meet the demand for continuing education during the wildfires. During this time, some students were reassigned to other campuses, while others were shifted to online learning. However, disasters like these cause disruptions in learning by throwing students into unfamiliar situations or environments that can impact their ability to keep up with their studies.
So, what can you do to support your children during learning loss recovery? A lot, actually. In this article, we offer you five helpful strategies to consider while navigating this challenging time.
The Impact of Natural Disasters on Education
During the fires, the Los Angeles Unified School District rushed in to provide new books, materials, and post-disaster education support to charter and public schools in LA so that they could continue learning. Other schools in the area prepared to take in displaced students so that they could continue attending class on regular school days.
However, as we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, students responded to changes in learning styles and atmospheres in different ways, with some struggling to succeed as they would in their traditional classroom. COVID affected students by causing them to miss weeks or months of in-person class time, disrupting routines and causing social or emotional changes.
But there’s a silver lining in this situation — parents and educators learned how to cope with academic recovery efforts. Looking back at the pandemic and learning from the effects that it had on student learning, they can apply certain strategies to help with learning loss recovery. These same strategies can be powerful and effective for students who are currently dealing with the after-effects of the Los Angeles fires.
5 Learning Loss Recovery Strategies
You can help your children stay on grade level and achieve academic success with the right strategies and thoughtful implementation. Take a look at a few ways to help get your kids back on track after a natural disaster.
1. Academic Recovery Tutoring
Academic recovery tutoring, or personalized tutoring, is an effective tool for students looking to make learning gains or catch up if they’ve fallen behind academically. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many professionals agreed that personalized learning and high-impact tutoring were key in helping students recover academically.
Keep tutoring groups small to maximize personal attention. The most successful groups are those that meet three times a week with the same tutor. Over time, the tutor can get to know their students well and tailor their sessions to best fit their needs. One of the benefits of tutoring after a disaster, especially when it comes to high-impact tutoring, is that studies show that students can increase their learning by three to fifteen months across all grade levels.
2. Social-Emotional Support
Tutoring after a disaster isn’t just about academic recuperation. In fact, providing social and emotional support is just another key point when thinking about how tutors help students succeed. Studies indicate that students who were affected by disasters were given academic support, but they also benefited from the social and emotional support of their tutors.
During the fires, students were placed in new schools or switched over to e-learning. Both situations can be distressing for students who are used to having regular interaction with their teachers and peers in a familiar environment. Tutoring after a disaster can give students the boost that they need when it comes to social-emotional support.
What can be even more effective is tutoring based on social-emotional learning (SEL). Positive interactions between tutors and their students are important during a time when so much seems uncertain from a child’s point of view.
3. Accelerated Learning Initiatives
Accelerated learning is another powerful outcome of tutoring students after a disaster. High-impact tutoring can increase student achievement from anywhere between three to fifteen months when used correctly. While this doesn’t replace a student’s classroom time, tutoring sessions are a supplement to the student’s regular curriculum.
These gains are most noticeable in early literacy and high school math. If you’re not sure how to help your child with math in the most effective way, consider tutoring. High-impact tutoring can fast-track your child’s progress while boosting their math scores at the same time.
4. Flexible Educational Programming
Individual or small-group tutoring allows students to learn in a more flexible way. While classroom teachers try their best to incorporate different learning styles and strategies in the classroom, it’s hard to tailor the curriculum to meet the needs of every student.
Tutoring allows for flexibility that can adapt the learning and educational program to best serve individual students. Speeding up or slowing down, using different strategies, or incorporating different materials are just some of the ways that tutors can create flexibility for their students.
5. Individualized Learning Plans
Similar to flexible programming, individualized learning plans (ILPs) are tailored to meet the specific needs of the student. An ILP considers a student’s strengths and interests while addressing areas where the student needs reinforcement. These plans guide success with clear benchmarks to ensure learning and progress.
While students may have ILPs in school, it’s usually for certain circumstances and not for every child. Educational professionals in tutoring have the advantage of working with a small number of students to create plans that facilitate positive learning outcomes.
How Tutoring Helps Students After a Disaster
Routines are an important part of education and development, especially in the earlier stages. During times of disaster, these routines are disrupted and can cause confusion or even disinterest when it comes to learning. Tutoring can provide some much-needed stability by placing a student with an educator in a small group that they can rely on from lesson to lesson. This constant can be an indicator to students that life will be back to normal soon.
Along with that, your kids may start to feel more confident and regain their stride. The fires flipped life upside down for so many in a short amount of time, and children feel the stress of the unknown, just like adults. By achieving academic success, they can start to feel like their normal selves again, bit by bit.
Most importantly, tutoring after a disaster allows students to catch up on their studies. While many benefit from being placed in a new school or their teachers’ efforts to use e-learning, these steps might not work for every student and can cause them to fall behind. Tutoring gives kids the academic and emotional boost that they need to make progress and catch up to where they need to be.
Access Educational Support With Alexander Tutoring’s Scholarship Program
Even with setbacks caused by natural disasters or unforeseen circumstances, we’ve learned that kids are resilient and can achieve amazing academic results with the right tools and strategies, such as tutoring. Personalized attention, individualized learning, and social support are just some of the ways that tutors help meet students where they are, assess their situation, and then help them meet their academic goals.
In light of recent events, Alexander Tutoring has expanded our scholarship program to students in the Los Angeles area. Our education professionals are ready to provide tutoring for students affected by the LA fires so that they can get back on the path to success after this unfortunate disruption to their education. Reach out to Alexander Tutoring now to learn more about our scholarship program and how our services can help your child succeed.
