Sadly, this vulnerability can be, and is, readily exploitable.  Well-meaning parents are often coaxed into signing expensive remedial education contracts, or into buying products and services that are inappropriate or unnecessary, all in an effort to buy a resolution to their child's problems.

This website was developed to offer responsible parents some practical alternatives, an impartial perspective, assistance, along with some inexpensive tools for improvement.  Here you may safely obtain:

The One-to-One Home Tutoring Parental Support Program

• Unbiased, objective appraisal of your student's educational strengths and weaknesses
• Custom tailored remediation program designed for each individual student
• Choice of three delivery methods:

1. A cost effective self-administered, guided program of remedial instruction in reading, writing, spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension
2. A professional One-to-One Home Tutor visiting your home regularly, where and when I can directly provide one, or
3. Objective monitoring of your local tutor (or your school's remediation program) to aid you in evaluating and boosting their performance

Learn How To Tutor Your Own Child:

This website is new in 2006 and therefore, still a work in progress.  Soon there will be a full section providing parents the tools to test, evaluate and remediate their own child's reading, writing and spelling deficiencies.  You will be able to download:

• Diagnostic Tests - uniquely designed by One-to-One Home Tutoring for self-administration
• Tutoring Methods - to teach you how to tutor your student yourself
• Tutoring Materials - developed over a lifetime of teaching remedial reading.  

When guidance or additional assistance is needed, I am personally available via telephone, email, and the internet.

At this time the One-to-One Home Tutoring Parental Support Program will be available only to those clients within my local region of Northwestern Suffolk County, New York, where Beta testing of these materials and methods is now under way

A Professional Tutor In Your Home:

One-to-One Home Tutoring can provide individualized instruction in your home by a experienced, certified teacher in certain areas.
For information: call (631) 261-7130, or email me directly by clicking >  Contact One-to-One Home Tutoring

Should a parent consider tutoring their own child?  My opinion:

No matter how dedicated and talented a professional might be, the fact remains that no one knows, understands, and recognizes a child's potential and limitations as well as that child's mother and father. 

"Special Education" and "Remedial Education" programs too often define a child in terms of disabilities rather than abilities, resulting in what psychologists call "The Expectancy Effect."  Simply, this is the unconscious tendency for teachers to prejudge and under-estimate the abilities of students whom they consider "disadvantaged" or "disabled" in some way. 

Which ways?  The term "disadvantaged" refers to race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status.  The word "disabled" has a specific legal definition, and refers to any physical or mental condition that impairs a child's ability to learn.  The list of recognized "disabilities" grows longer every year.

Are all these "disabilities" nonexistent?  Not at all.  Should "Special Ed" classes be eliminated?  No, that would be ridiculous.  Most Special Ed. and Remediation Programs provide valuable and necessary services for students who need additional skills work in particular areas (although they vary greatly in effectiveness from district to district).  However, in my opinion, in general, the less time a child spends in these special services programs, the better it is for that child, both emotionally and intellectually.

Many parents instinctively sense this and seek ways to supplement their child's education.  Some consider the possibility of tutoring the child themselves, but fear they "might do something wrong".  This is understandable because, in our culture, we have learned to rely heavily upon "Specialists" in many aspects of life.  This specialist class, in an effort to perpetuate itself, may consciously or unconsciously deepen people's insecurities in regard to their basic abilities to help themselves and/or resolve their own problems.

This website is based upon the presumption that a loving, concerned parent is as effective and, at times, MORE EFFECTIVE at tutoring his or her own child than a professional educator

This statement is not unrealistic idealism.  It is a principle which developed as a natural outgrowth of having worked with special needs children and their families for 25 years, and having seen how useful and productive parental involvement can be.   Love is not blind; on the contrary, it often enables people to discern qualities which others fail to recognize. 

I have found that, often, all that is needed is some carefully structured guidance,  a reasonable amount of patience, good humor, and common sense.  
If you are fortunate enough to possess all of these basic traits, plus have a desire to teach your child, I can assure you, you also possess the ability.

If the idea of tutoring your child does appeal to you, try it!  If after a month you determine the program is ineffective, just stop; it is that simple.
Do not  fear doing harm.  The risk of failing at helping your child is small, while the personal rewards for you and your child can be very great.