I believe all students can learn; it's just a matter of finding out how they learn. I specialize in identifying student's unique learning preferences, styles, and helping them find ways to succeed.

Getting to know my students and building rapport with them is key. So, I start a first session learning about my student and helping him or her to get to know me. Then I know that, together, we're ready to make progress. Additionally, I might try to review any past lessons, grades, testing reports, etc. that the parent and/or student wishes to share.

Guiding students to grow into independent learners is a primary goal of mine. Through positive feedback, self-monitoring strategies, and encouragement, I help students build confidence as well as knowledge they can perform better academically and learn to self-advocate for their educational needs.

One of the best ways to keep a student motivated and engaged is to know what his or her learning style preference is and incorporate that learning style into tutoring sessions. This helps students understand how they learn best, and when they know they can be successful, they tend to stay motivated. Additionally, I would make sure to build a strong rapport with the student so that he or she has confidence in their work.

There are different ways to learn, and students are unique in how they learn. So, if a student of mine struggles, I offer alternative ways for him or her to learn. I use strategies, tools, visuals, manipulatives, technology, etc. to find a way for the student to understand a skill or concept.

I use several approaches to help students struggling with reading comprehension including auditory and kinesthetic (listening and physical) strategies, chunking information into smaller bits, building understanding in root words, prefixes, suffixes, and developing context clue skills. I also work with students to help them grasp main ideas, story sequence, and point of view.

One of the best techniques I have used when I start working with a student is playing a game or doing some sort of icebreaker to build rapport. I also let the student talk with me about how they feel about reading or writing and what their goals are.

Oftentimes, finding a topic that interests the student helps to engage them. So for example, if a student loves baseball or dance, working with those topics in reading or writing helps them maintain engagement. It also boosts confidence because the student can use information he or she already knows about the topic.

Little assessments all through a lesson help me to know whether or not the student understands the material. But these mini assessments don't have to be paper and pencil assessments. Often, I ask students to give me a thumb up, shaky thumb, or thumb down to let me gauge where their understanding of the material is.

Praise, encouragement, and a positive approach all help me boost students' confidence in a subject.

I use several methods of evaluating a student's needs. First, I let them tell me what they think their needs are. I frequently find that students know what they need. I also use easy, fun probes and short assessments to help determine a student's level and needs.

As I grow in my understanding of the student's personality, learning needs, and learning style preferences, it allows me to adapt my lessons and approaches to best fit and engage the student. For example, a very creative student or a kinesthetic learner may need the opportunity to draw a picture of a vocabulary word in order to understand it and retain its meaning.

In a typical tutoring session, I bring an electronic component (e.g. iPad or laptop) pens, pencils, and paper as well as other tools I deem helpful to the student's learning.