Guide for parents · September 2026
Which English problems survive a video call
English transfers to video well, but comprehension is built by volume and talk, not by a weekly hour. What to buy, and what to do on the other days.
English is the subject that loses least over a video call
Maths tutoring online loses the working on the page. Science loses the equipment. English loses very little, because English teaching is mostly a text and a conversation about it, and both travel down a wire intact.
So the honest opening position on this page is that live online English tutoring is a good product. The question is not whether the format works. It is whether an hour a week of it is the right thing to buy for the problem you actually have.
Decide which English problem you have first
The word English covers at least four separate difficulties, and they respond to completely different help.
| What you are seeing | What it usually is | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Reads fluently aloud, low comprehension marks | Decoding is automatic, meaning is not | Talking about texts, often, over months |
| Answers are correct but far too short | Not knowing what evidence looks like | Being shown how to quote and explain |
| Ideas are good, the writing is hard to follow | Planning and structure | Planning out loud before writing |
| Spelling and punctuation drag the mark down | Technical accuracy under time pressure | Short, targeted, repeated practice |
Rows two and three are exactly what a good tutor does well in an hour, because both are technique and both can be modelled. Rows one and four are volume problems. An hour a week will not supply enough of either, and buying one to fix them is a common and expensive mistake.
The specific risk with an online English tutor
Because the work is a text and a screen, it is unusually easy for the session to slide into improving the piece rather than improving the child. The tutor suggests a better word, reorders a paragraph, tightens the opening. The essay gets better. The next essay, written alone, does not.
This is worth raising directly in the first session, and it matters more than in any other subject, because in English the work handed in can carry somebody else's fingerprints without anyone being able to prove it. For coursework and controlled assessment, ask the school what help is permitted before anyone helps.
What to do on the other six days
Comprehension is built by reading a lot and by being made to justify answers. Neither requires a specialist and both need frequency rather than intensity.
The highest-value thing a non-specialist parent can do is ask questions that cannot be answered by pointing at a line. Why did she do that. How do you know he was lying. What do you think happens next, and what in the text makes you think it. Ten minutes of that after a chapter does more than most paid hours, and it costs nothing.
For writing, do not edit the sentences. Ask for the plan — what is this paragraph for, what is the point, what comes next. Structure is the part within reach of a parent who does not feel confident about English, and structure is usually what is missing.
What Pobbi does here, stated honestly
Pobbi's English support is newer and much narrower than its maths support, and availability varies by country and year group. Saying otherwise would set you up to be disappointed.
The one part that is fully built is the maths learning check — twenty questions across eighteen skills, about twelve minutes, free, no card, aimed at Year 5 to Year 9 — and it is a maths check, not an English one. It will not tell you anything about your child's comprehension.
Where it is relevant on an English page is narrower than it sounds but real: a child whose reading is slow and effortful often looks weak across every written subject including maths word problems, and a child whose maths word problems fail while their calculation is clean is telling you something about reading rather than number. The check separates those two, which is a question parents genuinely ask.
For comprehension and writing themselves, a teacher, a librarian and a lot of books are better advice than any product on this site.
Questions about English help online
My child reads constantly but comprehension marks are low.
Volume builds fluency and vocabulary but not the habit of interrogating a text. The fix is discussion rather than more reading, and it works slowly.
Is an online English tutor as good as one in the room?
For most of what English tutoring does — reading together, discussing, modelling structure — the format costs you very little. Judge the person, not the medium.
Should we work through past comprehension papers at home?
Sparingly. Papers measure the problem without teaching anything. One short text discussed properly, with your child having to justify every answer, generally does more than three papers rushed.
How do I know a tutor is teaching rather than editing?
Ask to see a piece your child wrote alone, a month apart. If only the tutored pieces are good, you are buying editing.