Pros and Cons of Summer Tutoring at a Glance
By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist
Before you decide anything, here’s the short version. A meta-analysis of 39 studies found kids come back to school in the fall testing about a month behind where they left off in spring, and math skills alone can slide by 25 to 34 percent over the break. That’s a real gap. But tutoring isn’t automatically the right answer for every kid, and it comes with real tradeoffs too. Here’s how it breaks down.The Pros
- It can close a real gap before it snowballs. A few focused weeks now can undo a chunk of the learning loss research keeps finding, especially in math, where the slide tends to hit hardest.
- Your kid gets attention they’ll never get in a class of 25. One-on-one time means the tutor can slow down on exactly what’s confusing your child instead of moving at the pace of the whole room.
- There’s no grade riding on it. Summer tutoring drops the pressure of tests and report cards, so it can feel more like coaching than school.
- It can rebuild confidence, not just skills. For a kid who had a rough year, feeling capable again matters just as much as catching up academically.
- It gives some structure to a long summer. Some kids genuinely do better with a little routine mixed into all that free time.
The Cons
- It costs money. Private tutors typically run $25 to $80 an hour, online tutoring is usually $25 to $50, and tutoring centers often charge more like $100 to $200 a month for weekly sessions. That adds up over a whole summer.
- It can feel like punishment. If your kid already dreads school, tutoring during their break can reinforce that feeling instead of easing it.
- It eats into downtime. Unstructured play, sports, and just being a kid matter too, and sometimes a summer job or camp does more for a struggling kid than another workbook. If your child is dealing with more than just rusty skills, it’s also worth reading about how families weigh whether to hold a child back a grade, since the two decisions often come from the same place.
- Scheduling gets messy. Between camp, vacations, and sports, fitting in consistent sessions can be its own headache.
- The wrong tutor can do more harm than good. Skill isn’t the only thing that matters. Personality fit counts for a lot, especially with a reluctant kid.
Frequently Asked Questions About Summer Tutoring
Is summer tutoring worth it?
It depends on the kid. If your child has a specific skill gap and isn’t burned out on school, a few weeks of focused help can make a real difference come September. If they’re emotionally exhausted by school already, forcing tutoring can backfire, and a summer job, camp, or just a break might serve them better.How many hours a week is reasonable?
Most tutors and educators land somewhere around two to four hours a week, usually split into two shorter sessions rather than one long one. Anything more starts to feel like summer school, which defeats the point of a break.What’s the difference between summer school and summer tutoring?
Summer school is usually assigned by the school itself, often because a student needs to make up a failed class, and it runs on the school’s schedule. Summer tutoring is private and optional, so you control the pace, the subject, and how much time it actually takes.How much does summer tutoring cost?
Expect to pay somewhere between $25 and $80 an hour for a private tutor, a bit less for online tutoring, or a flat monthly rate if you go with a tutoring center. Rates shift depending on the subject and how specialized the tutor is, so it’s worth asking upfront.Will summer tutoring make my kid resent school even more?
It can, if the wrong approach is used with the wrong kid. Watch for signs your child is treating it as punishment rather than help. In those cases, building confidence through something non-academic, like a job, sport, or hobby, often does more good than another round of academics.Case Studies
Alex is a 15-year-old who has just finished struggling through his freshman year of high school. He has mild learning disabilities, feels stupid, and hates school. He needs to strengthen his basic skills and to discover that he is capable of learning successfully.
Allison will be starting third grade in the fall and has always had difficulty learning to read. She is a happy, social, athletic child who is looking forward to day camp.
Andy is 10, hyperactive, reasonably bright, but school is a constant challenge. He is going to overnight camp for 8 weeks. The camp offers tutoring as an extra-cost option.
Nicole is an angry 12-year-old who battled with her parents about doing homework and taking care of her other responsibilities throughout the past school year. She has developed an aversion to math, getting a D- as a final grade. She just wants to “hang around” all summer.
David is entering the fourth grade. Each year teachers and parents note that he seems to lose more of his skills over the course of the summer than the average child. It results in a struggle at the start of each school year before he finally catches up and settles in.
These are a few of the situations that parents have presented to me with the accompanying question of whether or not they should arrange summer tutoring for their child. Unfortunately there is no simple formula for making this decision but there are some guidelines that may prove helpful in weighing the pros and cons.
The two key questions are whether it will be a positive experience for the child and if it will be a beneficial experience for the child. These two issues are often fused together but need to be looked at separately. Another important issue is the potential benefits of a non-tutorial experience that might have to be sacrificed if the child is being tutored.
The latter point is particular relevant in Alex’s situation. He has such a negative attitude about school that he would approach tutoring as a punishment. Furthermore, given his learning disabilities school will continue to be a struggle because it plays upon his weaknesses, not his strengths. In this situation I will often try to get parents to identify the child’s strengths and to make the child’s self-esteem the priority rather than trying to increase his academic skills. What can be more beneficial is a work or recreational experience that helps Alex to feel more confident.
Being 15, finding a good work experience is a challenge, but sometimes just working in a local retail establishment turns into a very positive experience. Many children who don’t do well with academics are much more competent in hands-on situations with the tangible rewards of seeing the immediate gain from doing something well plus the weekly paycheck. If the child is at least 16, there are often more interesting, and profitable, jobs available. I have seen some boys who have done construction work and ended up learning to handle equipment that really boosted their confidence. For many teens working with younger children brings out a caring side that is not only rewarding to the teen but sometimes helps parents to see their teen in a more positive way.
Besides jobs, there are programs such as Outward Bound or biking tours that allow these teens who lack confidence to successfully master non-academic challenges. It may not result in better grades next year but it reinforces your message to them that despite learning problems they can still be successful in the real world.
With a child like Allison I would probably recommend individual tutoring in reading. It may be a challenge to schedule a time when she’s not tired from her day camp but a skilled tutor, using some innovative techniques may be able to make some modest gains in Allison’s reading skills over the course of the summer. Given the child’s personality she will probably be receptive to this. On the other hand, since she is getting reading help in school and making slow but steady progress it would be reasonable to allow her to just enjoy the summer, especially because she has a good sense of self and many strengths. Like I said earlier, it’s not simple right/wrong decisions.
Andy’s situation involves a couple of other factors. Much of his school difficulty is related to his hyperactivity. He is on medication during the school year but not at camp. He is successful at camp. Trying to do academics at camp would probably require some medication prior to the tutorial sessions. It may be preferable to just allow him the time off from both school and medication and continue his positive camping experience. It’s a time when he can blend in and be one of the kids rather than feeling different. The reality is that school will continue to be a challenge as long as the hyperactivity and related attention-concentration difficulties exist. Just like with Alex, parents and child need to learn that life may be easier as an adult when work options can be found that fit his strengths.
For the child like David who doesn’t retain information very well I usually recommend just having several sessions of review over the last couple of weeks of the summer. It often is just enough to prime the child for a better start and may reduce anxiety about the return to school.
Nicole’s problems are much more complex. One would need more information about her learning and psychological history to determine what strategy might work. However, a relationship with a high school girl who combines math tutoring with a “big sister” type experience that includes taking Nicole to a couple of concerts and to the beach or similar activities might be a very beneficial arrangement.
This touches on another key factor: choice of tutor. There are some gifted teachers out there who have an extraordinary capacity to reach a child, both personally and academically. If you hear about such a person it might be worth some flak or sacrifice to try tutoring. Similarly, someone who mixes in a special experience that is appealing to the child along with the teaching time may find a pathway to reach a resistant child. A male tutor who arrives on a motorcycle may be able to get some good writing out of a turned-off adolescent boy especially when doing some mechanics is woven into their time together.
Part of the message here is that being a successful student is not the primary determinant of having a successful adult life. Summer tutoring should be chosen where it has the best chance to be a positive experience for the child. But what is most positive is not always the amount of academic gain. More often it is the gain in self-worth and confidence that has more lasting value. Keep that clearly in mind when trying to plan your child’s summer.
Which Situation Sounds Like Your Child?
Every kid who struggles in school struggles differently, and that’s really the whole point of this article. Here’s a quick way to find the situation closest to yours before reading the full stories below.
The Teen Who Feels Dumb and Hates School (Alex’s Situation)
If your teenager has a learning disability and has basically given up on school, more tutoring often isn’t the answer, at least not right away. A kid in this spot needs to feel capable at something before they’ll trust another academic push. A summer job, especially hands-on work like retail or construction, or something like Outward Bound, can rebuild that confidence in a way a workbook never will. You can find some background on how learning disabilities affect kids differently from Understood.org, a nonprofit that focuses specifically on this.
The New Reader Who’s Falling Behind (Allison’s Situation)
A younger kid who’s behind on reading but otherwise happy, social, and doing fine everywhere else is usually a good candidate for some light, skilled tutoring, especially if it doesn’t crowd out the rest of her summer. If she’s already getting help during the school year and making slow progress, it’s also completely fine to just let her enjoy the break. Both are reasonable calls here.
The Active Kid Who’s Better Off at Camp (Andy’s Situation)
For a hyperactive kid who’s thriving at overnight camp, especially one who’s off ADHD medication for the summer, adding academics back in usually means adding the medication back in too, just to get through the sessions. That trade often isn’t worth it. Letting him have real time off, medication included, while he’s succeeding socially at camp can matter more than a few weeks of math review. CHADD has a good rundown on medication holidays for kids with ADHD if you’re weighing this decision yourself.
The Angry Preteen Who’s Done With Homework (Nicole’s Situation)
When a 12-year-old has spent the whole school year fighting with you over homework and ends up hating a subject like math, straight tutoring rarely fixes the real problem. What tends to work better is pairing academics with a relationship, like a tutor who’s also willing to hang out, grab food, or head to the beach together. The subject matters less than who’s teaching it at this age. If homework battles have turned into bigger power struggles at home, it might also help to read through more of our parenting articles on kids and children for other angles on the conflict itself.
The Kid Who Forgets Everything Over Break (David’s Situation)
Some kids just lose more ground over the summer than others and need longer each fall to catch back up. This is the textbook case for the summer learning loss we covered above. For a kid like this, you don’t need a whole summer of tutoring, just a handful of review sessions in the last couple weeks before school starts. It’s often enough to take the edge off that first-week scramble.
None of this is a script. The right call for your kid might not match any of these exactly, and that’s fine. Use these as a starting point, then trust what you already know about your own child.
