I believe that being an expert in a field is not the single most important element in tutoring students. While it is imperative to be extremely well-versed in the subject matter, it is equally important to be able to understand the student's comprehension level and motivations. I believe if I can take the material and make it interesting to the student, I can help the student gain a real-world understanding of the subject material in a way that is useful and interesting to them personally.

I would begin with talking about the student's interests and hobbies. I would ask what their favorite types of movies and books are so that I can try to find ways to encourage learning the materials using methods involving subjects the student already enjoys.

I can help students become independent learners by first helping them establish good methods for learning. I would also try to help the student see how everything around them leads to knowledge if they learn how to see the lessons in everyday things and occurrences.

I would try to find an example of how the skill or concept is used in something that the student enjoys, i.e. a movie, comic, or score card, and use that familiar hobby or activity to help the student learn real-world applications of the skill.

I would help a student struggling with reading comprehension by employing the seven strategies commonly employed by teachers: Seven Strategies of Highly Effective Readers. 1: Activating - "Priming the cognitive pump" in order to recall relevant prior knowledge and experiences from long-term memory in order to extract and construct meaning from text. 2: Inferring - Bringing together what is spoken (written) in the text, what is unspoken (unwritten) in the text, and what is already known by the reader in order to extract and construct meaning from the text. 3: Monitoring-Clarifying - Thinking about how and what one is reading, both during and after the act of reading, for purposes of determining if one is comprehending the text combined with the ability to clarify and fix up any mix-ups. 4: Questioning - Engaging in learning dialogues with text (author's), peers, and teachers through self-questioning, question generation, and question answering. 5: Searching-Selecting - Searching a variety of sources in order to select appropriate information to answer questions, define words and terms, clarify misunderstandings, solve problems, or gather information. 6: Summarizing - Restating the meaning of text in one's own words or different words from those used in the original text. 7: Visualizing-Organizing - Constructing a mental image or graphic organizer for the purpose of extracting and constructing meaning from the text.

After our initial tutoring on the subject or skill, I would have the student "teach" me the skill or subject. I believe in reading, writing, and then teaching to firmly solidify knowledge and skill.