Tutoring Services for the Virginia Beach area
Helping Your Child Succeed
We all want our children to succeed in school and in life, but as individual human beings we don’t always find the perfect complement to our strengths and weaknesses in a particular classroom group. This can be true even in the best of schools with the most talented and hard-working teachers.
The right tutor can be a highly effective way to not only help your child get up to speed in a particular subject, but to build their self-confidence and reinforce positive learning behavior. Considering the potential positive results, the investment is very low, and the individual attention provided often proves to be the exact missing ingredient for your child’s success in school.
Meet Teacher Dafna
Dafna Sonnenthal is a career educator who has worked with children and adults in primary, secondary, and college level programs. She has taught in inner-city public schools and at one of the oldest private academies in the nation.
Dafna currently teaches lower school grades at the Virginia Beach Friends School, where she has worked for the past sixteen years. During that time she has implemented new curricula to the third grade based on materials from (The College of) William and Mary’s acclaimed Center for Gifted Children program. She also introduced an Edible Garden on the school property where all students can participate in hands-on learning about food and agriculture by growing vegetables themselves.
Prior to working at Friends School, Dafna taught fifth grade at Norfolk Academy, the 8th oldest school in America. Before that, she taught middle school in Miami’s public education system.
A highlight of Dafna’s early career was being selected to showcase her 8th grade classroom at Miami’s Booker T. Washington Middle School to Queen Elizabeth. The Queen was on a state visit to several US cities, and she was interested in seeing how non-English speaking student immigrants were being integrated into the school system through the English as a Second Language (ESL) program. As television cameras rolled (shown below) and Secret Service personnel stood by, Dafna had the opportunity to chat with the Queen and Prince Phillip about her work, and her pupils had the chance to make some presentations and take pictures with Her Majesty, who even spoke in French directly to a Haitian girl in the class.
Dafna has provided private tutoring throughout her career, alongside her regular teaching. Her credentials include:
- Virginia Teaching License for elementary grades 3-6 and ESL grades K-12
- Master of Science in Education degree from the University of Miami (FL)
- Bachelor of Science degree from Binghamton University (NY)
Subjects
Dafna’s expertise covers all the basic subjects in elementary education, grades 1-6. For students needing to develop their skills with English as their second language, she brings decardes of experience working with students of all ages to successdully broaded their abilities to read and communicate in English.
Reading & Writing
Get grounded in the fundamentals of grammar, sentence construction, and cohesive expression through the written word. Improve reading comprehension, study skills and appreciation for literature.
Mathematics
Get your child solid with the bascis – from the multiplication tables to working with fractions and concepts of gemometry.
ESL
Dafna herself came to America at 8-years old and beginning public shool barely able to understand English. She understands the challenges facing immigrants learning a new language, and has the experience and skills to help them succeed.
Learn From The Comfort of Home!
Dafna is happy to conduct in-person tutoring in the comfort of your home, but if a particular situation requires remote learning, she will be happy to work with your child via Zoom or other 2-way online medium.
Let’s Learn Together!
Telephone
(757) 572-6391
Contact Dafna (email)
Please use the form below to send a question or request by email to Dafna. Be sure to include the best way and time to get back to you.