My daughter was well below grade level at the end of first grade. I had purchased Hooked on Phonics for her when she was four and we had worked on it, but she still wasn't reading well. The school district recommended holding her back or summer school, but unfortunately we chose to spend $6000 at Sylvan that summer.
I am a certified teacher and clashed with my daughter when we tried to work together, so we opted for the "one-on-one" teaching Sylvan had to offer. To offset the cost, I was trained (yes, everything the former Sylvan employee said in another post about the training was true). I was given the 25% employee discount, and we spent our summer at Sylvan. I will tell you I never had fewer than three students at a time in my "one-on-one" sessions.
Before they even tested her, I told them we suspected dyslexia, but that our district would not test until second grade. They tested her and of course found she was well behind her age group for reading and math and recommended 4 hours per week until summer and then 15 hours per week during June and July. WOW! That's a lot of $!
What Sylvan doesn't tell you in the beginning is that dyslexia is a "medical condition" not caught in their "comprehensive testing". After I complained, I was told that "they are not doctors and cannot diagnose dyslexia". They sure were happy to take my money, though.
Four days into second grade, my daughter's teacher called and said we needed to test for dyslexia. Since she has been in the program she is reading on grade level and making much better grades (she's in third grade now).
Oh, I forgot to mention the little guarantee at the end of their heart-tugging commercials (I really do like the commercials - wish I had had a moment brought to me by Sylvan - sniff: (- they guarantee your child will be on grade level by completing a certain number of hours or your money back. Before signing, be sure to read the fine print. They have two reading programs, Beginning Reading and Academic Reading. My daughter was so far behind that she was in the beginning reading for most of the time and only completed a few hours in the AR program. The guarantee is only for the AR program and hours taken in the BR program don't count. At least that's what I was told when I complained.
Sylvan works best for students who have no learning disabilities, who were maybe just lazy during school, need extra attention, or perhaps they were young for their grade level and needed extra time. The truth is that the Sylvan curriculum depends on many workbooks from several different companies. It is a drill and practice, with the hope that repetition will help a child learn.
For strictly a tutoring facility for normal children, Sylvan could work. But plan to spend a whole lot of money for it!
Again - If you suspect your child has dyslexia, I can 100% assure you that Sylvan Learning Center is NOT the answer. They may claim to have the colored transparencies and have trained staff to work with dyslexic children, but they absolutely do not. They offered to let my daughter return to Sylvan the next summer free of charge and claimed they could help her with her dyslexia, but I declined.
0 comments