It's been 30 years since I was in Secondary School, or High School for our friends overseas. During that time the syllabus changed, and the exam criteria changed and all this bountiful head full of knowledge accrued through study and application is of almost no use whatsoever to my teenager.
So at the teenagers request and suggestion, we scouted for a good tutor, we have visited him, the teen has taken a class with him and learned more in an hour about interpretation of exam questions - if it's phrased this way, the examiner wants to know what you know about blah blah - than I have been able to do in a couple of years.
Interpretation of questions is something particularly tricky for teens with dyslexia and Asperger's Syndrome and Mears Irlen (where the words wobble on the page). They have this wealth of knowledge in their mind but knowing how to respond to what is in front of them is difficult. Their mind goes off in a spiral of what-does-that-say's and what-if's and does-it-mean's and all their study is almost for naught.
In steps the new tutor, a fully qualified teacher, and I'm excited to see if it is helpful in the long run. The teen has 1.25 years before the big, scary exams are due so a little diligence now will hopefully help kiddo translate all of that good stuff into written stuff on the page. I'd rather invest in education than something which would not last as long.
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