Since Susan began tutoring our eight-year-old son three months ago, we’ve seen marked improvement in his ability to keep up in school. He’s feeling better about himself as a student and is far more willing to dive into his homework. He enjoys his sessions with Susan, and prefers working with her to going to a commercial tutoring center. —Avery S.
Susan’s help was the boost our eight-year-old son needed in the three R’s. His teacher reports that he’s better able to follow in class, stay on top of his classwork, and understand concepts. Susan keeps the sessions moving and varied; we often hear laughter coming from our son’s bedroom where they meet … and yet they emerge with written stories, completed worksheets, and game score tallies. We’re excited to have a newly-energized learner in our home! —Bryan M.
I reached out to Susan when my husband (and our kids’ stay-at-home dad) fell gravely ill and we needed help with our seven-year-old daughter’s academics. The trauma of her daddy being in home hospice complicated her existing attention and focus issues and caused her academic performance to go down. Susan met with me and heard all my concerns and then jumped right in, accommodating our family’s special needs. She took the time to get to know Ella’s interests and passions and then incorporated those into a custom writing program (first story: “Wildcrats Meet Barbie and Have an Adventure”). Taking advantage of Ella’s enjoyment of numbers, Susan got her playing lots of math games, which engaged her and gave her a boost when it came to the math being done in class. She even had Ella complete a research project on a topic of her choosing: giraffes! When I asked Susan to switch to helping with homework, she was right on it. And her willingness to pick Ella up from aftercare and bring her to our house solved the childcare puzzle two days a week. Susan has a nice manner with kids … I recommend her highly. —Darin J.
UPDATE from Darin J.: We stopped the sessions in early August to give Ella a break before school started up again, the agreement being that if the transition to third grade was smooth, we wouldn’t need to resume them; if it was rocky, then we would. Well, I’m happy to report that several months into the new school year, she’s doing great. I had a parent/teacher conference last week … her teacher says that she is hitting all the marks and doing great work. She is motivated to do her almost-daily math and is writing so much more, and better, and with better penmanship. I am sure that the work Susan did with her is a big part of it. Intensive work over a school year seems to have actually eliminated the need for a tutor. Four hours a week over the course of one year is way more efficient than one hour over four years or two over two!
My six year old son had been struggling with reading and comprehension. After reading quite a few reviews on Susan, I went ahead and reached out. I started with her 6 week program to start and then decided to extend it from there due to the progress of my son. She created a program that was customized to fit his needs. She even purchased additional materials on her own that she knew would benefit him. She didn’t necessarily focus on the reading, she knew his biggest hurdle was the comprehension part so she made it fun and week by week he started to show improvement. His weekly reviews in class starting earning higher marks and his school testing had him at reading 10 words per minute prior to Susan. After working with Susan his words per minute jumped to 32. Overall, my family had a great experience with her and I would highly recommend her to anyone looking to help their child improve. –Wainani K.
Email from parent following an extra session, held to help student finish a big research project: Thank you very much for all of the effort you have put into this. Alden was so pleased and proud last night. This is exactly what I was hoping for – that he could learn how to write and also learn not to dread the process. Actually I’d say this has been even better than what I had hoped for. He isn’t just not dreading the process but was eager to have the extra help yesterday instead of just stopping on Tuesday. Thank you so much! –Sharie M.
Susan Bernstein has worked with my nine-year-old son on reading and writing skills for over six months, and I highly recommend her as a one-on-one tutor. There are so many reasons to recommend Susan, but I’ll just name a few. First, she has experience as a teacher and has received additional professional training. This is evident in her work, as she has brought outside materials and used specialized reading instruction strategies with my son. Second, she connects well with my son. He is always happy to see her and describes many of the educational activities they do together as “fun.” Third, I appreciate that Susan has high standards and requires my son’s full effort. She reviewed an essay with my son and was very thorough about content, grammar, and punctuation. Fourth, Susan’s professionalism makes it easy to work with her. She responds quickly to communication, arrives on time, and is flexible about conflicts. I am so grateful that Susan could tutor my son this year! — Sara A.
Susan has been a life saver for my kid who struggles with confidence about his writing ability. She was quick to assess his needs and interests, integrating elements of each within each session. Susan is incredibly generous with her time and communicates so well with kids and their adults. Her enthusiasm and love for teaching and kids has been clear from day 1. Thanks so much, Susan, for sharing your knowledge and love of writing with our kid! — Tamar A.
We were informed that our 3rd grader was falling behind in school and immediately began the search for a tutor. We were very lucky to have found Susan. In a word, Susan is wonderful! Our son was struggling with writing, some math concepts, and other issues related to an ADHD diagnosis. Susan took the time to get to know him and quickly established a rapport. She’s very creative and uses her ingenuity and resources to create a custom program. We are proud to report that our nine-year-old is doing so much better in school. Our son looks forward to his tutoring sessions. And we as parents couldn’t be any prouder. I believe that’s a win-win-WIN. — Keziah D.
Susan has been tutoring our 6 year old daughters twice a week for the past year in which they attended a fully remote Kindergarten. We could not be more pleased with the progress they made in math, reading and comprehension. It was a tough school year, but with Susan’s help the girls exceeded the academic benchmarks for Kindergarten by the middle of the year and will be starting their first grade year already meeting the midpoint reading and math expectations. Our girls have a tough time engaging online through zoom, but Susan’s firm but kind manner and the ways she finds to make learning fun have kept them interested and learning! We highly recommend Susan and we look forward to finding ways to continue tutoring even as our girls return to in person learning this next year. — Janna & Shylah C.-H.
Susan Bernstein has tutored my 13-year-old son both before and throughout the COVID period. She transitioned smoothly from in-person to online sessions and continued to get good work from him even among the myriad distractions and pressures of the lockdown. Her willingness to get to know him really well means that she can always gauge his effort level, and with boundless patience and gentle humor she brings out the best in him time and again. Susan communicates regularly with us on his progress. She is fully attuned to his strengths and weaknesses. She selects some exercises to bring up those areas where he struggles, and others to draw confidence from areas where he does better. If we ask for something specific, such as to review a particular homework assignment, she will happily adapt and incorporate that too. His Language Arts score on the CAASPP test improved this year despite everything, and we know why. Thank you Susan! — Neil M.