In one week, he’ll write three drafts of a five-paragraph essay of literary analysis. In school or 1-1 tutoring once a week, that process would take four to six weeks.

He’ll read two literary classics in their entirety. This winter, for instance, the course will cover A Christmas Carol and the Odyssey. In school or in 1-1 tutoring once a week, reading those two books would take at least three months.

And he’ll learn 100 new vocabulary words—on top of the words he learns weekly in 1-1 tutoring. In the once-weekly 1-1 tutoring program, learning 100 more words would take 10 additional weeks.

He will sit in a room without computer-based distractions, he will read the literature aloud, and he will write under the teacher’s supervision.

Your child has no other homework he can think about. There are no popping chat windows with messages from friends. There is no YouTube available. No smartphone to check Instagram, Facebook or WeChat.

As a result, he focuses on his work for longer than he has ever focused before. He asks the tutor questions to clarify his understanding. He works through challenges instead of giving up to surf the web. The same routine continues for three to five days in an IYE winter class, and up to two weeks in an IYE summer class.

Imagine the effect: Your child finally learns to work in a focused state. He sees for himself the difference that it makes to work this way. When he returns to working on school assignments, he knows from experience what he needs to do to perform at his highest level. You no longer need to lecture him about it.

To sign up for a class, check the dates and schedules, and then respond to this email.

Improve Your English keeps its classes very small to ensure high quality. Typically, an Improve Your English class has up to six middle-schoolers in a Middle School English Class or Creative Writing Class, and up to 15 in a High School English Class. Because class sizes are small, your child will need to participate.

When it comes to writing, instead of sitting silently at the back of the room looking at his phone, your child will start asking questions about the assignment. He also shares his ideas with his classmates instead of counting on others to respond to the teacher.

When it comes to reading, your child will need to read aloud, answer questions about meaning, and share his thoughts about the text. He can’t stare at his book and let others answer the questions about the book.

One of the reasons you may be dismissing taking group English classes altogether is because in the past you may have sent your child to a class with 20, 25, or 30 kids in a room. When there are 30 kids in a room, your child will find a way to hide in the back of the room instead of participating in the class. In an IYE class with five other kids, he’ll get plenty of attention from his expert IYE tutor.

Analytical skills are hard to develop. Building them requires 1) reading challenging material, 2) thinking in complex ways about the material, and 3) writing sophisticated arguments about the material.

In an IYE summer or winter group class your child will be reading literary classics. These works are challenging to read and understand. They feature complex characters, sophisticated metaphors, subtle humor, and irony. Simply reading and discussing this material will improve your child’s ability to think deeply about texts. This experience enables your tutor to push your child to think in complex ways about the material—step 1 of improving analytical skills.

When it comes time to write the essay, your child realizes that he actually has ideas worth writing about. Five minutes after receiving the assignment, your child is putting pencil to paper, getting his ideas out on the page. He creates an outline for his analytical response and checks it with the tutor. He brainstorms ideas, evidence, and concrete details for the response, and he then selects the ones that will best support his point. This detailed, multi-step process further deepens your child’s thinking about the writing prompt—step 2 of improving analytical skills.

During an IYE group class, within a few minutes after your child completes the draft, his IYE tutor is reviewing it and making comments. This immediate feedback is crucial for helping your child to improve his writing. He can immediately see the errors in logic and weaknesses in evidence. Fixing these problems creates more sophisticated arguments—step 3 in improving analytical skills.

In an IYE winter or summer group class, once your child has written a second draft, your IYE tutor promptly reviews the draft for errors in grammar and mechanics. This is another benefit that your child doesn’t receive in school.

Your tutor will have a lot of comments to make on the writing because your child did not receive the artificial assistance of a computer.

The computer is not automatically fixing misspelled words. It is not automatically correcting subject-verb agreement errors, run-on sentences, or sentence fragments.

Moreover, your child receives a complete, in-person explanation of why the grammatical error is wrong, as well as extra worksheets giving him practice in fixing the problem.

Once your child has received the IYE tutor’s comments on his writing, he begins to work on a final draft that incorporates the teacher’s comments on grammar and mechanics. All of this writing and revision—with pencil and paper—is what will help your child improve his writing skills.

He’ll memorize 20 vocabulary words each day of an IYE winter or summer group class. In addition to memorizing definitions, he’ll also learn sample sentences so that he can see how the word is actually used. He’ll also have competitions with his classmates to further encourage him to learn vocabulary words. Finally, since IYE has designed the vocabulary curriculum by taking the words directly from the reading, your child will receive additional reinforcement by seeing the words as he reads the book.

In the IYE winter and summer group classes, your child will practice oral reading under the supervision of his highly experienced IYE tutor. He’ll come out of the class with more confidence and greater fluency in his oral reading.

Instead of reading in a monotone, your child will find himself putting emotion into his reading. As a result, he’ll better understand the emotions of the characters, especially subtle differences.

In addition, you should know that a lot of teachers in public and private schools judge a child’s reading ability by how well he reads aloud. If your child can read with confidence and varied pronunciation, the teacher will think better of him and be inclined to give him a higher grade.

And as your child is learning and studying,

You will receive a daily email progress report from the teacher. The report will cover what your child covered in class that day, including chapters read, themes discussed, and vocabulary words memorized. You’ll be able to follow up to see what your child discussed and learned in class so that your family can celebrate his progress.

At the conclusion of the class, your family will receive a binder of all your child’s work, a personalized assessment of your child’s progress, a personalized reading list based on your child’s reading interests, and an outline of future goals.

In addition, once the class is over, IYE will ship your family one book from your child’s personalized reading list to encourage him to continue reading at home.

We will also offer follow-up vocabulary tests, proctored in our office, with a complete report emailed to you afterwards.