What is your teaching philosophy?

As a tutor specializing in standardized exam preparation, I start each lesson by jumping straight into the material. Since topics on standardized exams are given in random question order, that is how I structure my lessons. My students dive into practice sections, after which we review each incorrect answer and conduct a full lesson on the un-mastered topics until the student feels comfortable with that topic.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

I am a strong believer in the Socratic method. Instead of giving my students all of the answers, I ask targeted questions to lead them to the right path to solve for the answer. I believe this technique encourages students to work more independently over the long run because they see that they can do it on their own.

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

In my experience, most students who struggle with reading comprehension do so because they are not interested in the passages they are reading. By re-training students to focus on answering the questions by proving their answers in the passage as they read, rather than by remembering the details from having pre-read the passage, students increase their accuracy and their level of interest in the passage becomes obsolete.