Why You Should Tutor Students with Special Needs
Even though a lot of nations and the general public are beginning to talk about special needs students more, a lot of nations—including Singapore—continue to overlook the needs of these students. Teaching them demands a significant deal of mental and physical stability because they require more love and care than typical students.
In addition, tutors must complete programs and training to ensure they are qualified for the role and ready for a career working with special needs students before they may instruct or tutor a child with special needs. Since they must invest more time and money in training and programming than their regular counterparts, some home tutors may regrettably view this as a drawback. As a result, there are an increasing number of special education tutors around the globe.
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What are the responsibilities of a special needs tutor?
Depending on the specifics of the student they are tutoring, tutors for special needs students may have additional responsibilities beyond the standard tuition session in which they provide supplemental courses. When a home tutor chooses to tutor a student with special needs, they may additionally be responsible for the tasks we’ve outlined below.
1. Perform diagnostics
Home tutors for kids with special needs identify the student’s areas of weakness, much like other tutors do with typical students. They might also discuss other underlying problems, such as learning difficulties, with the parents. Although a comprehensive diagnosis is still best left to an expert, a special needs tutor can offer their thoughts on the child’s potential problems as well, given their training in working with students with special needs.
2. Work closely with parents
Managing students with special needs can be challenging. There’s a wide spectrum to just bulk them all together and as such, not all of them behave the same way. For this reason, tutors and students’ parents need to collaborate closely. Additionally, they have the option to designate other experts to assist in managing the child.
3. Develop learning goals and objectives
While tutors still follow the MOE curriculum and syllabus, they still have more freedom than school teachers to tweak these goals and objectives according to the students. They can develop their own goals and objectives based on what is suggested and apply them to their students. With special needs students, tutors have to be patient and take the time to consider the goals they want to achieve with their students. As such, the student should also be taken into consideration when setting up goals and objectives.
4. Care for physically challenged students
It’s possible that some children with special needs won’t be mobile when working with them. This indicates that a few students will struggle with specific motor skills. Tutors should not only teach their students but also take care of them and occasionally assist with relocation or other needs.
What are the benefits of tutoring special needs students?
Fortunately, we have gathered a few benefits of tutoring a special needs student. If you are a home tutor ready to make a career to teach special needs students specifically, this article is for you.
1. Tutoring is more rewarding and fulfilling
Being a home tutor and seeing your student reach their academic goal is satisfying enough, how much more with a student who requires special attention and care?
Students with special needs tend to be more cautious in unfamiliar situations, bashful with strangers, and reserved in social situations. One of the key goals a tutor should have either before the session begins or on the first is to make the student feel at ease with their home tutor. The more at ease and transparent a student is with their home tutor, the more smoothly home tuition proceeds. This is due to the tutor’s ability to accurately comprehend the student’s needs and challenges and, as a result, create a strategy that will effectively address the problem.
Furthermore, it’s not simple to gain the respect and trust of a student with special needs. If they are not comfortable with their home tutor, they may tend to become stressed out if the tutor is near them. That will negate the benefit of tuition and can make it more difficult for them to attend the remaining sessions.
Unfortunately, the difficulties don’t end there even after you’ve won their acceptance and trust. Additionally, there is the issue of aiding these students’ conceptual understanding. As previously said, they need extra consideration and care. They therefore learn differently than any other learner. One student with specific needs may benefit from a method while another does not. They could find it challenging to pick up the typical approach, thus they might need an entirely different teaching style.
Think of every idea each student was able to recall and comprehend as a win for both you and them. As previously stated, it’s not a simple task, and given that the student retained the lesson, both the tutor and the student have already done well. Additionally, the level of satisfaction is much higher when the student thanks you for teaching them. Some students feel isolated from their peers and classes, but with the tutor’s assistance, they may catch up and reunite with their peers.
2. Special needs tutors are more in demand
As mentioned previously, there are significantly fewer home tutors for special needs students than those of normal students. Because of this, there is an increasing demand for these kinds of home tutors. There are endless home tuition agencies and parents who are looking to hire tutors for special needs students.
The majority of people consider the additional training and programs to be a burden and don’t want to go through them. Additionally, they view educating students with special needs as more difficult due to the additional mental and physical demands. But since more parents are looking to hire a tutor for their child with special needs, you won’t have to worry about losing your job because there will always be opportunities for you.
3. Tutors have more job opportunities
As a home tutor, working with students who have special needs is extremely difficult and demands mental strength. You must have a great deal of patience and stress tolerance. Managing them might be challenging since they can become irritated with themselves. Moreover, additional coursework and training are required of tutors before they may work with students who have special needs.
This would not be a waste of additional time and work. Tutors will acquire new abilities and credentials that they can list on their résumé. As a result, if they decide to change careers, employers will find their resume more appealing. Due to their qualifications and expertise, tutors hoping to work in a different industry will be viewed as valuable assets by their employers. Because of this, don’t worry if you find yourself in a difficult situation and decide to change careers. A lot of organizations will be searching for workers just like you to expand their teams.
4. Tutors have shorter working hours
As special needs education schools have shorter school days and hours than conventional schools, the same can be said with special needs home tuition. There is also a significantly less difficult and simpler curriculum to follow in special needs education. This means that tutors can have more time to spend doing what they like after a tough but productive day of tuition sessions with special needs students. Tutors can also use the extra time after tuition to interact with their students outside of the lesson and get to know them better.
The student may begin to view the tutor more as a friend than a teacher if they connect with them outside of scheduled tutoring times. This could help both parties have much simpler tuition and help the student feel more at ease with the tutor. More leisure time also contributes to a better work-life balance.
5. Tutors get to be the voice of their students
Students with special needs continue to get some labels from society, despite increased awareness of their needs. If you are an enthusiastic home tutor, you may also combat the stereotype by using your background. Spending time with students who have special needs will help you better understand and connect with them. That means that you will have additional chances to appropriately inform the broader public about the reasons behind the unique behaviors or peculiarities of particular special needs students in comparison to all others.
You may raise awareness, foster understanding, and represent these children’s interests by working with other ardent supporters and even their parents. By doing this, people with special needs will be able to educate others about the importance of accepting them as fellow humans and not demeaning them. They will have a greater voice and the world will become more accepting of individuals with special needs as a result of them speaking up.
Conclusion
There are still many other benefits of being a special needs home tutor. These are only some of the key advantages as to why you should think of becoming one. If you’re interested in becoming a home tutor today, send your application here, and let’s make the world a better place by giving the students the quality education they deserve.
Carelle
Carelle is a teacher who has been through the ups and downs of the teacher and learner life. She wishes for every learner to gain educational satisfaction that will help embody the people they want to be in the future.
