When learning English, children face numerous difficulties, ranging from syntactical to phonetic. By identifying these general errors, parents and tutors can give proper advice to their children or students. 

Here, we will review some of the common mistakes that children make in English and how an English tutor can assist in overcoming them.

  • Confusing Tenses

One more common mistake which most of students do is a misuse of the past, present and future forms of a verb. For example, they may say, "I go to the park yesterday," instead of "I went to the park yesterday." This can cause issues with sequence and time.

How Tutors Can Help: It is always easier to help kids understand the differences in tenses when a good English tutor presents it with fun activities. They can incorporate drawings, narratives, and games that will enable the child to understand when to apply the right verb form.

  • Subject-Verb Agreement Issues

Another common mistake is the failure to observe subject-verb agreement especially in the use of singular and plural subjects. For instance, a child might say, "The dog is running", instead of "The dogs are running".

How Tutors Can Help: Teachers can also involve the students in worksheets or activities which involve the correct form of verb uh with the correct subject. Games that require children to act out a particular sentence or read it aloud can help in understanding subject-verb agreement better.

  • Incorrect Pronoun Usage

Pronoun reversals include; 'he' instead of 'she' or 'she' instead of 'he' or 'his' instead of 'her' or 'her' instead of 'his. 'For example, 'She is playing with his toy' instead of 'her toy'.

How Tutors Can Help: English tutors can help by using examples in the course of teaching the lessons. Some intervention strategies include playing pronoun-matching games, reading stories with children, and pointing out correct pronouns while reading to children.

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  • Confusing Articles (a, an, the)

Articles are misused quite often, for instance, 'a' and 'an', or even not being used at all. An example of this is a sentence such as, "I saw elephant," where the article "an" is missing.

How Tutors Can Help: Tutors can also establish basic rules and make enjoyable sessions with the children where they have to fill in the right articles in the sentences. The best way to teach children about the use of "a," "an," and "the" is through the use of flashcards, repetition games, and stories in which some of the words are left blank to be filled by either "a," "an," or "the."

  • Difficulty with Homophones

The problem with homophones, which are words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings (for instance, 'there' and 'their'), is especially challenging for young learners. A child might write, "Their is my book," instead of "There is my book.

How Tutors Can Help: In order to deal with homophones tutors can design such tasks as fill in the blank or flashcards, where necessary words are to be matched. By presenting the context of each word and its meaning through examples, children tend to understand the difference between homophones better.

  • Overuse of simple vocabulary

Children use simple words like 'good,' 'big,' 'nice' and other similar words that restrict their capacity to come up with more elaborate expressions.

How Tutors Can Help: Tutors can use books that are at the child's reading level but have a diverse lexical density. Forcing kids to describe things in more detail during writing exercises can help them learn more words. Word lists and quizzes on synonyms also encourage children to use more elaborate words.

  • Challenges in handling sentences

Children learning English make incorrect sentences that are not in line with the English grammar rules. For example, they may utter, "To the park, I go," instead of, "I go to the park.

How Tutors Can Help: An English tutor for kids can also use the building of sentences to teach sentence structure. Some of the methods include rearranging the scrambled sentences or filling in the missing parts of the sentence starters. In interactions, tutors can also use the correct grammatical patterns and compel children to emulate them.

  • Mixed Capitalization and Punctuation

Children often misapply capitalization rules when using proper nouns or the first word of a sentence, and they may not use punctuation at all. For example, instead of writing "John went to school today," they might write "john went to school today.

How Tutors Can Help: Tutors can engage the children in writing exercises in which they correct wrong sentences. Basic instructions on capitalization and punctuation, as well as the stories that children need to punctuate, can help to explain these concepts better.

  • Mixing Up Prepositions

These articles are difficult for children to learn as they include prepositions such as 'in,' 'on,' and 'at.' For example, a simple sentence like, "The book is on the table," may be said as "The book is on the table."

How Tutors Can Help: English tutors can help by using actions when, for instance, using objects, telling children to put it 'on' or 'in' certain objects. Other aids, like pictures that depict the right use of prepositions, may also be useful in learning.

  • Fear of Speaking English

Some learners could be reluctant to use English for fear of making mistakes, which, in the process, slows their learning.

How Tutors Can Help: Tutors have a significant responsibility to ensure confidence by being quick to establish rapport and comfort in children to speak. Group discussions in the form of fun activities such as role play or storytelling can help build their confidence in using English in real-life situations.

Conclusion

When the child's first step is toward English language development, some barriers need to be overcome: grammar accuracy, vocabulary growth. The presence of a good tutor is a great help in such situations as he/she patiently teaches and provides tailored help to tackle those issues.

For parents wanting to hire a qualified English tutor for kids, Sage Education offers well-rounded educational support for children seeking to learn English. They have efficient and resourceful tutors who specialize in taking care of English language learners and ensuring all difficulties of different students are managed. Sage Education is recognized for outstanding teaching techniques that promote students’ correction of recurrent errors in English and their comprehension of the languages.

English tutors give children not only correction of their mistakes but also build up their confidence through efficient targeted help where the English tutors address problem areas. Hence they lay a foundation for future success not only in learning but also outside.