What is your teaching philosophy?

I believe in tailoring my approach to each student's needs. Sometimes, students are good at a subject, but they don't feel confident for one reason or another. Validating their strengths, working to correct their weaknesses, and sometimes even organizational help can go a long way.

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

In a first session, I would want to learn a student's favorite subjects and why they like them. I would want to get older children's perspectives on why they're having difficulty with one subject or another, and then help with whatever they need help with on that first day, and, moving forward, use the information I've learned to develop a tutoring style I think will best help the specific student's personality and learning style.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

Confidence. A student needs to learn they can do it. And unfortunately, a parent repeating it over and over doesn't always do the trick. Especially once a child hits age twelve, they start working on boundary setting with parents, and no matter how much parents love them and want them to succeed, they'll frequently need an outside third party to validate them in the same ways.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

It's very much based on the individual student's personality, but until I started learning what worked best for a specific child, I would make sure I was right there, even when they're doing independent work. Sometimes, students will need constant prompting to make sure they don't get distracted. Other times, they need more quiet and space.

If a student has difficulty learning a skill or concept, what would you do?

I would get to the route of the problem and then try to address it, on my own if it's really about the concept. Sometimes, the problem is a mean or unmotivating teacher. At that point, I would make sure the parents know, and do everything in my power to keep the child successful anyway by providing motivation and validation as their tutor, so that they're not reliant on a mean teacher for support that won't come.

How do you help students who are struggling with reading comprehension?

Depending on the age of the student, there are tricks to help. Some children find it helpful to read a passage more than once, looking for different things each time. On the first read, they would look for just the plot. A second read could clarify content like metaphor, tone, and meaning. Similarly, some children find it helpful to map out a passage, or to even read the questions they'll need to answer before they read the passage itself. The last two are tricks more specifically used for success on standardized testing.

How would you help a student get excited/engaged with a subject that they are struggling in?

I would try to redefine the content in a way that works for them. Motivation is the most important thing, but if we're talking about, for example, encouraging reading in a child who doesn't like to read, it might be as simple as getting them a book on a subject they're interested in.

What techniques would you use to be sure that a student understands the material?

I would ask them to explain to me why a correct answer is correct.

How do you evaluate a student's needs?

By speaking with the parents and hearing their concerns, asking the child, and evaluating myself through an observation on their process of completing an assignment. This is where we can observe if they're psyching themselves out, if they don't understand the material and don't even try, and most other complications.

How do you adapt your tutoring to the student's needs?

A tutor has to adapt to personality type and learning style.

What types of materials do you typically use during a tutoring session?

It depends on what works best for the child, and if they're a visual, auditory, reading/writing, or kinesthetic learner. In other words, if they learn by seeing, hearing, reading and writing, or doing.