Yemi: Vernon Hills tutor

Certified Tutor

I am passionate about teaching my students how to write and read critically. I enjoy and have experience working with children of various ages and levels, from pre-K to high school. I love using questions, activities and discussion to help my students understand what they are reading and engage with it meaningfully. Whether my students are writing short stories, poetry, 5 paragraph essays, research papers or otherwise, I'm here and qualified to teach and support the process!

If you would like to learn more about me, my teaching philosophy and my experiences, please read more below!

I am a graduate of Brown University, with a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience (concentrating in Child Development) and Public Health (Honors), where I've also worked as a teaching assistant. Having studied child development, I'm passionate about fostering my students' imagination and capacity for learning.

My approach and my passion for teaching, tutoring and mentorship is the result of formal training, as well as my experiences in a variety of settings, from elementary schools with 2nd graders, to online one-to-one tutoring sessions to university classrooms.

I am skilled in reading comprehension and analysis, and enjoy teaching my students how to critically engage with literature, whether it is scientific, journalistic or literary. I am passionate about supporting my students' learning and development by prioritizing skills such as critical thinking, information literacy and creativity principles that I've developed myself throughout my academic journey. I'm a firm believer in using questions, explorative thinking and open conversation and always encourage my students to be active participants in their own learning!

I am also passionate about writing, I was trained through the Writing Fellows Program at Brown University and served as a Head Fellow during my time there. This initiative, the first of its kind in the United States, focuses on fostering a writer's voice and centering a holistic, student-centered writing process. Fellows partner with university courses of various disciplines and work with groups of students throughout the semester on each major writing assignment. We prioritized iterative and individualized feedback tailored to the needs of each student. Therefore, as a writing tutor here, I focus on more than just a student's singular assignment, paper or essay. When I work with a student, my goal is to make an impact on their underlying writing process so that they walk away with concrete and transferable skills, as well as a confidence in their own writing voice, beneficial for anything they do in the future, be it their in-class written responses, their academic papers or their college essays.

Notable lived experiences:
- Successfully write an IB Extended Essay rewarded with high marks
- Successfully wrote a college level honors thesis