Award-Winning Reading Tutors
serving Columbia, SC

I am currently a college student at the University of South Carolina who is open to helping anyone. I have tutored middle schoolers and have helped tutor in study groups during college. I understand how difficult classes can get. As an engineering major, I am willing to work hard in classes and I'll work with any hard topics that you have questions on. No question should be pushed away. My favorite area is Biology. I'm a Biomedical Engineering major. I look forward to tutoring you.

Growing up in a large Caribbean family meant Lenique was constantly switching between storytelling traditions, dialects, and cultural references — a background that made her attuned to how much context shapes the way someone processes a page of text. Her Duke biology training added a different dimension: reading where every detail in a dense passage matters and skimming isn't an option. She brings both instincts to reading sessions, teaching students to actively track meaning whether they're working through a picture book or a middle school nonfiction assignment.

Breaking a passage into layers — what the author literally says, what they imply, and why they structured it that way — is how Rachael teaches reading comprehension. She zeroes in on skills like identifying main ideas versus supporting details, making inferences from context clues, and recognizing an author's tone. Students walk away reading more actively instead of just scanning words on a page.

I am a recent graduate from the University of Georgia with a major in Chemistry and a minor in Spanish. During my junior year, I spent the fall through summer semesters helping instruct general chemistry classes and organic chemistry labs. Overall, I personally enjoy teaching and tutoring others not only because it better helps people understand some of the more difficult concepts of the material but because it also allows me to fully cement my knowledge and help people further.

I am well familiar with all the techniques to achieve a higher score. I can also show a student how to study effectively so that they do well in school.

I am currently a Senior at Florida Atlantic University, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in English with honors. I have gained valuable experience teaching a diverse range of subjects. I have had the opportunity to teach writing, reading, critical thinking, and beginner's Spanish to students from grade 6 through undergraduate college. This experience has honed my communication and instructional skills, allowing me to engage with students of various age groups and learning styles. I am excited to continue applying my skills and interests as a tutor because I planning to pursue my PhD in literature after graduating with the goal to become a professor. I am committed to contributing meaningfully to the fields of literature, education, and language.

A music composition background might seem unrelated to reading, but Rachelle's Master's from the University of South Carolina trained her to analyze structure — how pieces build, where themes develop, and what holds a work together — skills that map directly onto tracking an author's ideas through a passage. Over ten years of tutoring across subjects from elementary through college level taught her that many students just need someone to show them how a text is organized before comprehension follows naturally.

I am a graduate of Siena College in Loudonville, NY. I received my Bachelor of Science in Marketing and Management. I have two children that I have homeschooled for eight years. We have used many different curriculums and tried many different teaching styles. That is the beauty of homeschooling! We can change tactics and find what works at that time. I started a homeschool co-op, and I was the director and tutor for 6 years. I am now a tutor at a homeschool co-op in South Carolina. I was also a substitute teacher at a public school. I tutor many subjects, but I specialize in reading for young children and children struggling with reading. I believe in the above-at-below reading method. A child needs you to read to them above their reading level, with you at their reading level, and they should read independently below their reading level. This helps build confidence and works great, especially for young or struggling readers. I also teach history and science and have experience with classical education.

Building real reading comprehension means going beyond "what happened" to "why does this matter" — identifying an author's argument, recognizing tone shifts, and connecting ideas across paragraphs. Eliza teaches active annotation strategies that turn passive reading into a conversation with the text. Her dual focus on economics and German at Penn required constant close reading across very different kinds of material.

When a passage feels confusing, the issue is usually that a student is reading every line at the same speed instead of adjusting strategy by text type. Eileen — who scored 1550 on the SAT and a perfect 36 on the ACT — teaches active reading techniques like annotation, context-clue vocabulary decoding, and identifying an author's purpose within the first few sentences. These skills transfer directly to both standardized tests and classroom assignments.

Political science coursework at Northwestern means Parag spends most of his week pulling apart op-eds, policy briefs, and academic arguments — texts where the real claim is often buried under qualifications and jargon. He teaches students to spot that structure in any passage: where the thesis actually lives, which details are evidence versus filler, and how to read strategically enough to answer questions without re-reading the whole thing. Rated 5.0 by students.

Teaching fellowships in political philosophy at Harvard and a visiting research stint at Cambridge meant Vanessa spent years pulling arguments out of dense, layered texts — the kind of reading where missing one qualifier changes the entire meaning. She brings that same precision to younger readers, teaching them how to track what an author is actually claiming and spot the evidence holding it together. Holds a 5.0 rating.

Strong readers don't just decode words — they predict, question, and make inferences as they move through a passage. Kirstie builds those active reading habits by teaching annotation strategies and context-clue techniques tailored to each student's level. Her liberal arts training means she's comfortable working with fiction, nonfiction, and everything in between.

Strong reading comprehension isn't about speed — it's about knowing how to identify a passage's main claim, track how evidence supports it, and distinguish between what the author says and what the author implies. Michelle teaches these active-reading strategies explicitly, building the kind of annotation habits that transfer to standardized tests, textbooks, and independent reading alike.

For students who struggle with reading comprehension, the problem often isn't effort — it's that no one has explicitly taught them how to monitor their own understanding as they read. Diana's TESOL background trained her in exactly this: making strategies like predicting, questioning, and summarizing into habits rather than afterthoughts. She tailors her approach to the student's current level, whether that means decoding informational texts or tackling longer fiction.

Formulating an opinion about a text — not just summarizing it — is where David pushes students, drawing on his liberal arts background in literature, comparative literature, and critical writing. He walks readers through how to track an author's argument, weigh word choice, and articulate what they actually think about a passage in clear, specific language.

Between a master's in political science and an English bachelor's, Alex has spent years doing two very different kinds of reading — literary close reading where every word choice matters, and policy analysis where you have to extract an argument from fifty pages of data. That range means he can teach a student to slow down and trace tone shifts in a short story one session, then tackle an informational passage full of competing claims the next.

Years of parsing statutes, case law, and dense philosophical texts gave Emily a toolkit for breaking down any reading passage into its core claims and supporting evidence. She applies that same analytical approach to teach students how to identify main ideas, track an author's reasoning, and distinguish fact from inference — skills that transfer across every subject.

Molecular biology textbooks demand a particular kind of reading — scanning dense paragraphs for the one detail that matters, then connecting it to information three pages back. Agustin applies that same discipline to reading sessions, teaching students how to hold onto key ideas across a passage and figure out what an author is emphasizing even when the language isn't straightforward. His fluency in three languages also gives him a sharp ear for how context shapes word meaning.

Stronger reading starts with knowing what to do when a passage doesn't make sense on the first try — rereading strategically, annotating for structure, and distinguishing main claims from supporting details. Jennifer, who scored a 1510 on the SAT and is completing her Secondary English MAT at NYU, teaches these active reading habits so students can tackle dense or unfamiliar texts with confidence.