What is your teaching philosophy?

The heart of helping a student with reading comprehension is to have them read to you and ask questions through the reading to check comprehension and pinpoint what exactly the student is struggling with. It could be issues with vocabulary, and you can help the student by clarifying what specific words mean. It could be grammar, such as misunderstanding verb tenses, so it could be helpful to break apart syntax structures to guide the student to understanding just what a sentence is communicating. Sometimes, students are very good at sounding out the words in text, but they aren't actually processing the information, so you need to get them to slow down and frequently paraphrase what they have read. The main point is that they need frequent guided reading and the teacher needs to closely analyze what the student is getting hung up on.

What might you do in a typical first session with a student?

A first session would mostly be exploratory. I will have communicated with the client ahead of time and brought any relevant materials. I would use that time to ascertain what the clients needs and goals were with the specific material and proceed from there.