Tutor Doctor Can Help Prevent Summer Learning Loss

Just because the school year is winding down doesn’t mean that the necessity for academics wanes.

Indeed, the phenomenon of “summer learning loss” - the loss of academic skills and knowledge during the summer months - is real, according to Granby’s Dan Reisel of the Tutor Doctor.

“You can look it up and you will see that if you take a couple of months off for summer vacation, you’ll not coincidentally lose a couple of months worth of knowledge,” Reisel said in a telephone interview.

That’s where Reisel’s franchise comes in. Serving Granby, East Granby, Windsor, Bloomfield, Simsbury, Canton and other surrounding areas, Tutor Doctor provides tutors and other programs to prevent summer learning loss.

Reisel said that he has between 12 and 18 tutors - all with degrees and about half of whom are certified teachers - available to help in all subjects across all grade levels. Unlike other organizations, the tutoring is in-home and case specific.

Reisel said that the tutoring that’s offered isn’t just to bone up on subjects that were taken in the prior year. Particularly for students going from elementary school to middle school or middle school to high school, Reisel said that his tutors can also anticipate what is coming for the next school year.

“You pretty much know what your subjects are going to be, so Tutor Doctor can get you ready for next year,” Reisel said.

He is also having one of his writing tutors organize at least one workshop this summer.

And Reisel matches his tutors (The Tutor Doctor’s tutors are interviewed and undergo background checks before they are hired) with students/clients based on interviews not just with the tutors, but with the clients and their families as well.

“We look at the academic need, what they are learning and their personalities and then we make a match,” Reisel said.

And the people who have taken advantage of the Tutor Doctor’s services swear by them.

When asked about Tutor Doctor’s service, Joe O’Donnell, a client of Reisel’s, said, ”The real difference is that Tutor Doctor’s tutors build a good relationship with the students. You could have the best tutor in the world, but if they can’t work well with the student, the student won’t learn anything. That’s why Tutor Doctor works.”

Reisel, a former UTC employee of 21 years, started his Tutor Doctor franchise in August 2011 and so far growth has been slow, but steady.

“We’re still establishing our name,” Reisel said. “Once people know what we can do and how we can help out, things will continue to pick up.”

Reisel said that the best part of his job is when he gets a call from one of his tutors and learns that a student went from a D to a B in a class.

“That’s why I’m doing this. … I like to help people,” said Reisel, who said that a session with a tutor runs between $45 to $57 depending on the number of hours scheduled.

The idea, of course, is to prevent having the student even get to the point where he or she has a D, according to Reisel, which is where preventing summer learning loss comes in.

“If you get a student ready for next year and they’re confident about it, then it makes all the difference in the world,” Reisel said.

For more information on the Tutor Doctor, call 860-709-0817.

Clarification: the direct phone line for Dan Reisel was changed.