When it came time for Arianna Harris to take the ACT, she needed a boost of test-taking confidence.
She switched to a private high school at the beginning of her junior year, and by that time the school had already prepped her peers for many of the skills necessary to take the ACT. Because she didn’t receive this preparation, she needed some instruction on strategies for taking the infamous college-entrance exam.
That’s when her family got her connected with Club Z! tutoring and their ACT prep program.
“My main goal was to go into the ACT and come out having a higher score, but to also go in and not to have to worry about what in the world I was doing,” Harris says.
That’s exactly what happened. After working with Mary Crumpley and another Club Z! tutor for five weeks, Harris raised her overall score four points and improved each of her sub-scores. This resulted in increased scholarship offerings. Overall, she said she learned test-taking strategies and prepared through repetitive practice.
ACT prep is just one offering from Club Z! as the service offers in-home, one-on-one tutoring for all academic areas and age ranges from kindergarten through 12th grade. They also offer many scholarships for their services to help with affordability.
Not only does Crumpley tutor with Club Z!, she also developed the curriculum for the math and science sections of the local ACT prep program. Overall, she finds the results students achieve from tutoring to be extremely rewarding.
“I worked with a couple of students, and within weeks I had fallen in love with one-on-one tutoring,” Crumpley says. “I was able to see where my students were missing important concepts and helped them fill in the ‘gaps’ that were keeping them from understanding new concepts. It was so rewarding to watch them become more successful and confident.”
Crumpley says the ACT is vastly different from the tests given in schools because it’s administered under such a strict time limit. As a result, much of her work is teaching the skills necessary to successfully take this timed test. While the test can be tricky, it’s teaching them life skills.
For Club Z!, one-on-one interaction is essential. Crumpley says explaining something in five minutes to a student individually is more productive than explaining the same concept to a classroom of 30 students for an entire period.
“I am helping students learn to problem-solve and to understand that they are not ‘dumb’ at math—they just need to fill in the content gaps they have missed,” Crumpley says. “I am helping to open doors of opportunity for them, encouraging them that they can learn, reinforcing the satisfaction of hard work and helping them accomplish their goals.”
For more information on the ACT prep program or any Club Z! offering, call 816-965-0090.