What We Do

Our Philosophy & Services

At Eagle Eye, we do one-on-one tutoring. We teach and help students, so they can accomplish what they need to and then move on - more competent and confident. How do we do this? Our motto guides our work: Simplify, Strive, Succeed.

Simplify: We break down the task into solvable pieces. We know the material, determine what a student needs to know and understand how best to commit that information to memory. We also pay attention to what the latest science says about cognition, stress and achievement.

Strive: There’s definitely no progress without work. But there’s also no progress without understanding the sources of one’s mistakes - as Francis Bacon noted: truth comes from error. So we help our students analyze their mistakes, learn from them and maximize their performance. Collaboration between student and tutor is at the heart of what we do: we pay attention, explain and guide.

Success: There are many ways to measure this. We not only work for scores and grades (though we definitely do that!), but, as importantly, we teach our students to identify their strengths, to fortify the weak spots, and to reach their potential. Yes, there are important external metrics, but it is also critical for students to celebrate progress. Happiness, success, joy of learning. Those are pretty good goals.

In addition to meeting in our convenient Glen Echo offices, we can work with students at some local private schools during the school day and are available for virtual tutoring.  We help students in Europe, Asia, the Middle East as well as students at boarding schools across the United States.

Test Prep for High & Middle School

CHANGE:ACT and SAT: Test prep for the ACT or SAT has become practically essential. But preparing for these tests and taking them are also pretty dreadful. Anxiety, self-doubt, boredom and frustration can make for a stressful junior year! We know all this, and we know the tests. We have helped students prepare for more than 15,000 hours (that’s almost 2 years worth of non-stop blabbing). The good news is that the ACT and SAT are repetitive and predictable. The other bit of good news is that we know what we are doing - 15,000 hours do tend to leave an impact. Our instruction focuses on what students need to know and how they need to take the test. These tests are not “one size fits all”; there are often multiple paths to the same answer. Our tutors strive to understand each student’s reasoning and adapt their approach accordingly.

The first step is to decide which test to take: the ACT or SAT. There is absolutely some content overlap between the ACT and SAT, but the two tests emphasize different content, require substantially different pacing, and each employs distinct, idiosyncratic, little tricks to bedevil test takers. On top of that, the ACT has a science section - ugh! Mastery here requires rigorous repetition.

So, we start with a practice SAT and a practice ACT. In our experience, there is simply no shortcut here: hybrid tests really do fail to capture critical differences between the tests and, in attempting to save time, provide flawed data.

Improvement is based on mastering content and on consistent performance, stemming from learning the essentials, dispassionate analysis of mistakes and from practice.

We generally meet students once a week and provide up to an hour and a half of homework: we work largely from material provided by the SAT and ACT. Because each student is different and because what each one’s needs change over time, our tutors adjust their focus accordingly, working to solidify old material and techniques as they attack new ones.

We help students get prepare for the SSAT, ISEE, HSPT: these are tests for admission to private grade school or high school. The SSAT and ISEE are made by different companies and have different formats but are used by most schools. The HSPT is used for admission to Catholic schools.

We offer complimentary practice tests for all our students on most Saturdays, and we encourage students to take practice tests every 3 to 4 weeks to develop the stamina needed for official test days and to inoculate themselves against anxiety. These tests give us the opportunity to chart progress and identify areas of continuing weakness.

Reading and Writing Support

Eagle Eye Tutoring offers reading and writing coaching for students in grades 3 through 12. Using a mixture of Whole Language and Phonics instruction and practice, we teach and grow reading fluency as well as improve students’ ability to annotate. We also teach students how to organize and express their ideas more effectively in both expository and creative writing, organize ideas effectively, while respecting their voice.

Academic Tutoring & Organization Coaching

Eagle Eye Tutoring offers academic support in most grade school and high school subjects. We basically loved school and were pretty good at it, so we welcome the opportunity to help students see the value of what they are learning (and maybe even the beauty, too!) and improve their performance. Some students need help understanding the material. Other students need to learn how to prepare more effectively.

By finding the cause of the struggle, our tutors get results. We provide long-term tutoring as well as last minute review sessions. We also provide help with organizational and executive functioning skills.