What is your teaching philosophy?

Most children, with reading and writing, need to be taught by a systematic, explicit method that involves several senses at the same time (listening, seeing, and touching). They require one-on-one instruction so they can learn at their own rate. They require structured practice and immediate corrective feedback.

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

When a student struggles with one or more components of reading or writing, the student needs to be assessed and evaluated to determine where to start and what objectives to cover.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

A student can learn to be successful and independent by a gradual release of shared learning and scaffolding. When he has had enough practice that gradually becomes successful, he then has the confidence to try it on his own and be successful.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

Motivation can be acquired by working with the parents, teachers and student by earning rewards, successful work, and showing the student that he is succeeding,

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

Try another method to teach it. Break it down into simpler steps, and reteach it.

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

Reading comprehension depends on the student understanding the objective, recognizing in the text and being able to reason it through together. Again, we would practice it until it becomes easy. We might even have to work on simpler reading texts until the student recognizes this in more complex texts.

What strategies have you found to be most successful when you start to work with a student?

We work in small segments of time for different components of our lesson. I have found that when we break things up into different sections we can then work on strengths and weakness better, and this helps them focus better.

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

I try to find text that they can relate to that is fun and engaging. There are also ways to drill on skills that are fun and engaging as well.

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

We have benchmarks throughout training; review at the beginning of each of our learning segments and at the end of each lesson.

How do you build a student's confidence in a subject?

Practice, practice, practice. Showing a student that he can do this. Assessments and review.

How do you evaluate a student's needs?

I have various benchmark tests, and I review his work from school. I do running records and take samples of his writing, spelling, and language. I ask him to read for me and do individual comprehension after this.

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

I follow the student's growth according to his growth and our objectives.

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

White board, markers, crayons, pencils, flash cards, charts, texts, etc.