The Sylvan Insight™ Assessment: Turning Your Child’s Education From Unknown to Known

By: Mark Kance & Lauren Niglio

Understandably, many of the parents we speak to at Sylvan are worried about gaps in instruction. And then there are the students, who are experiencing first-hand the slew of educational changes.

The good news?

Students living through these difficult times are adapting, and that is precisely what makes children so powerful: Their resilience. Kids are always up for a new challenge!

But, what if parents don’t know what gaps their student has in the material in front of him/her, or how to help? It’s hard to solve a problem if you don’t know exactly what the problem is.

That’s where your local Sylvan comes in—we’re here to help your children catch up, keep up or get ahead, so your kids get the most out of their education.

How? It all starts with our Sylvan Insight Assessment. With our unique assessment, your child’s academic needs don’t have to be another unknown this year.

The Sylvan Insight Assessment

We think the Sylvan Insight Assessment is an excellent tool, as it allows us to help families pinpoint their child’s exact academic level.

Led by a Sylvan staff member, we utilize a combination of adaptive computer, paper-based and other interactive sections. The assessment begins with questions and topics that are considered on-grade level. However, depending on student performance, the assessment subtly adapts so that we can fine tune the true academic level of each student.

Because the assessment adapts, most students report that the assessment was neither too hard, nor too easy and come out of the assessment experience feeling positive. To top it off, when students put forth a good effort, they can earn tokens, and they can use these tokens to shop in the Sylvan Store (filled with toys and other student-centric items) as a reward for their hard work and effort. We see kids of all ages LOVE this part!

(By the way, the fun doesn’t stop there! Your local Sylvan Store is part of our proven motivation system and is available to students after each tutoring session with us, so students can spend the tokens they earned through their hard work and effort.)

Back to the assessment … We have assessments for grades PreK-12. To assess one subject, it can take 20-30 minutes. If you’d like a full view of reading, writing and math, that typically takes about 1 hour and 30 minutes complete.

For younger students, we also assess letter recognition, sounds, sight words and basic math facts.

For middle and high school students, Sylvan also has a Study Skills Qualifier assessment to ensure they are prepared to get organized, manage their time, understand themselves as learners, take notes from a variety of sources and more!

What Does the Assessment Tell Parents?

The results of the assessment provide parents with a great deal of information. It pinpoints what skills the student knows, and the skills that would be coming up next in their learning plan, to ensure that we are teaching the skills in an organized, systematic way.

Throughout the assessment and consultation process, parents will gain an understanding of how their child is performing in comparison to other children in their same grade, and insight into how their student is feeling through a self-evaluation. The self evaluation asks students to reflect on their current habits, behaviors, attitudes toward school and much more.

What Happens After the Assessment?

This is one of the parts of my job that I love: Meeting with the family to discuss the results.

We start with the positives and the strengths of the child. This is always fun to talk about. But we can also help parents understand where their child needs help. We can pinpoint exact areas to focus on and we connect the assessment results to our proprietary, personalized and adaptive learning plan so that we can effectively teach students the skills they need to learn, in the order it makes sense to learn them.

For example, if a student needs more practice with comprehension strategies, we teach the individual skills first (main idea, inferences, cause and effect) to isolate where the student is having difficulty. And only after that, do we put all of the pieces together during a comprehension lesson.

Whether a student is below, on or above grade level, the Sylvan Insight Assessment and your Sylvan Director can create an individualized learning plan that allows each student to achieve their academic goals.

Here’s What Parents Are Saying About the Assessment
(Don’t just take our word for it!)

“I learned more about where my son is academically through the Sylvan [Assessment] than I have from any school grades and standardized tests.“

“I felt it was money well spent to see where my child’s weak areas and strengths were — plus the follow-up plans to hit every one of those areas.”

“We thought my son had issues with math, but Sylvan’s assessment showed us it’s actually his reading comprehension. I’m glad to have discovered the real issue.”

“I knew my child was behind, but not how badly. This assessment gave me the answers in black and white instead of sugar-coating things.”

Want to Bring Out Your Child’s Best?

To get the most out of your students’ education and help your child reach his or her true potential, take the first step and contact your local Sylvan today to schedule an assessment!

Sylvan Franchisee Mark Kance and Sylvan Teacher Lauren Niglio collaborated to write this blog.