Tutor services offer help with studies

Island students who have struggled with getting good grades in school will now be able to improve them, thanks to TutorWorks, a new tutoring service offering convenient, in-home instruction to people of all ages and in all subjects.

Lea Saccoman, 29, director and founder of TutorWorks, is a former elementary school teacher. She left teaching to tutor at home after having her first child, and has since become attached to the more personal side of this type of instruction. In fact, it has become a passion. “I had about 30 students who needed to grasp all of the same concepts at once. Some were consistently ahead of the class, and some always struggled with the material. It was only the middle portion of the class whom I could depend on teaching well, and I wasn’t comfortable with that.”

Saccoman said the individual, personalized instruction she was able to give students when she tutored was more professionally satisfying. “It made all the difference to me, because I knew that each student I taught was successful,” she said.

Saccoman saw the need for a tutoring service upon moving to Oak Harbor with her Navy husband Joe, who pilots P-3’s, last October. She met parents who had been driving their children all the way to Mount Vernon to receive help in a learning center because of the few tutoring options available on Whidbey Island.

TutorWorks now provides islanders with a convenient option for in-home tutoring by highly qualified tutors, many of whom have teaching credentials or advanced degrees. Tutors are available to teach all subjects and all ages, prekindergarten through adult. Teachers with special needs backgrounds are also available, as well as computer tutors who teach anything from the most basic computer skills to advanced programming.

“I am proud of this service and how it will help the people in the community,” Saccoman said. “My hope is that parents will discover that there is an option to help their children succeed in school.”

For more information about TutorWorks, call 679-4215 or e-mail lea@tutorworks.net.

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