By Ben Walker
Staff Writer

Every year, the National Honor Society invites a variety of Westford Academy students to join them. Although each student requires a specific grade point average, it brings in many new faces with each coming school year. One of the many things NHS does is help tutor struggling students.

NHS members tutor in areas that they excel in. The society also tutors students in SAT prep and now provides group tutoring, meant for students in high stress level classes. In group tutoring, tutors will provide students with advice on how to attack difficult classes or challenging tests. The tutors can share steps and methods and relay it to struggling students.

Karun Kannan, senior and NHS president, and Andy Shao, junior and executive board member, are two of several NHS tutors.

One–on–one tutoring has also changed a bit this year as in the past, tutoring one–on–one was inconsistent according to Kannan.

“In recent years, it was drop-in tutoring… and was very wishy-washy, you didn’t know if the student was going to come or not,” said Kannan.

This year, students must sign up for one–on–one tutoring by using the email provided.

The tutors are also specialized this year. As mentioned earlier, tutors work with students who need extra help in a specific subject.

“Say [students] need math help, then we choose a good math tutor, to help them out,” said Shao.

This process now benefits the students and tutors for the better.

Both Kannan and Shao have been official members of NHS since their junior year at WA. They have already started tutoring this school year.

According to Kannan, he helps students by working with them in specific subjects and tries to share his methods or ways to solve specific problems. He tries to help students overcome a mental road block and helps them get past issues they have. He helps students because he knows what it is like to be challenged with schoolwork. With English being his second language, he had a tutor for his English class. Last year and now this year, he worked with WA English Literacy Outreach Club and went to Lowell to help kids with their homework. In the end, he knows what it feels like to be tutored.

For Shao, he says he guides the students on thinking processes, but he never tells them the exact answer. He leaves it to the student to get the answer, but he helps them understand the work by giving them clues and hints. The reason why Shao enjoys tutoring is because he used to help students at Chinese schools speak English. Since then, he always feels good when he helps others succeed. Shao also works at the Kumon learning center, where he helps younger kids with math and reading.

If you are a student in need of NHS tutoring, you can email [email protected].