AMY DISHLIP

When smart kids can’t ‘get by,’ tutor helps them organize, study

By Deborah Moon

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Growing up in a Jewish family where education was considered very important, Amy Dishlip decided she wanted to go into education and make a difference in kids’ lives.

As a middle school teacher seeing 180 students each day, she said it was tough to remember students’ names, much less make a real impact on their education and life. So she turned to tutoring.

After five years of tutoring part-time, Dishlip opened Study Wise Tutoring a year ago and now goes into client’s homes to tutor students in middle school through college. Dishlip has a master’s degree in education.

For three years, she was a gymnastics team coach at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center, where she began her own gymnastics career at age 2½. She also attended preschool and kindergarten at the MJCC.

While many tutors offer subject-specific tutoring, Dishlip said she teaches organization, study skills and time management skills. She said she looks at students holistically.

“Lots of students are flunking because they are disorganized,” she said. “They may not turn in their homework because they can’t find it or because they think it’s not important. I explain to them that all those little, ‘not important’ assignments add up to a big part of their grade.”

“Subject tutoring only works if the student is organized, knows how to study and can communicate with teachers,” she said.

“I’m getting a lot of calls from parents of freshmen who just flunked their first semester,” she said. “I see smart kids who ‘got by’ in middle school. Now they can’t. When parents try and instill rules they didn’t need before, it causes tension. Sometimes a third party can help alleviate the stress between parent and kids.”

Dishlip said she would prefer to help students before they fail. She suggests study skills tutoring before students start middle school, high school or college. So she will work with fifth-graders to ease their transition to middle school the following year. She said summer is an ideal time to get ready to step up to the next educational level.

Dishlip offers an initial free consultation visit, but then requires a 12-week commitment from families.

“It’s not a short, quick fix,” she said. “It’s a patient process. We are building habits. Some kids take four weeks to do that, some take a year.”

For more information, contact Dishlip at 503-789-3184 or studywisetutoring@gmail.com.