Use this sheet to record work completed during a tutoring session and materials and assignments for the next tutoring session. Print on duplicate or triplicate paper to retain a copy for yourself and one for your tutees/parents.
Ten Tips for Acing the ACT!
In this post, I offer 10 teaching tips for new college instructors. Find advice about course design, the 1st week, grading, & campus resources, starting...
Well structured BUSS4 essays which answer the question set and demonstrate the required skills invariably score very highly. This BUSS4 essay planning template follows the approach we encourage in the BUSS4 exam coaching workshops and is a great revision tool.
In this post, I offer 10 teaching tips for new college instructors. Find advice about course design, the 1st week, grading, & campus resources, starting...
Starting a tutoring business? Learn how to plan and stay organized as a tutor with a tutoring binder. Everything to need to get started...
Do you want to learn how to write a great essay? Here, you'll find a multitude of useful tips, strategies, and inforgraphics that'll help you do just that.
Thinking about starting your own tutoring business? Follow this step-by-step guide to learn how to start your new business the right way.
After-school tutoring can be a great way to use your teaching skills and strategies to reach students on a different level while earning a little extra income along the way. Legal Stuff 1. See Your Accountant We do not offer tax or legal advice so be sure to consult your accountant and/or attorney to make sure that your tutoring business is set up correctly in your state or region before starting out. Getting Ready 1. Securing a Place Secure a place where you will conduct your tutoring. I have found the public libraries in my area to be good places to meet with students for tutoring because they offer a quiet area away from major distractions. As a bonus, being at the public library can open up possibilities to you and your student that you may not have known about! If tutoring at your school, make sure that you get permission from the administration or board. 2. Getting the Word Out Does your school secretary or guidance office keep a list of tutors? Will you leave business cards in prominent places? Will you use social media posts? Many clients seem to come by word of mouth and social media recommendations once you get established. 3. Your First Student As soon as you have your first student lined up, it's time to prepare. Preparation is the key to a successful tutoring session! Talk with the student's parent or guardian to set up a time and place for tutoring. Exchange contact information. Talk about expectations, specifically where help is needed, and payment options. Inform the parent about any materials that the student will need to bring such as homework and school materials. Ask about any allergies. If permitted at the tutoring location, consider having healthy snacks available for the student. Snacks are welcomed by students who are coming straight from school or practice. Finally, ask about the child's interests. Contact the student's teacher to get some background information about strengths and where he/she needs the most support. 4. Planning Overplan! It's better to have too much to do than not enough! Plan time for your student to work on any assignment such as homework that the parent or teacher has requested your help with. Next, plan games and hands-on activities. These types of resources will keep your student engaged and having fun while learning. Keep your lessons relatable to your student. For example, if your student is into art and you are working on descriptive writing, consider bringing in a print to discuss and write about. For a student into soccer and working on cause and effect, play a game clip, discuss, and have the student write about the cause and effect in the clip. For a student into the theater and working on ending punctuation, provide part of a script with missing punctuation marks. Have the student read the script and add in the ending punctuation. Make a list of suggestions for ongoing practice. To maximize the interaction between you and your student, consider saving any online game or activity for last as a possible follow-up suggestion and form of practice. 5. Materials Consider having a designated bag just for tutoring resources. Keep a supply of pencils, erasers, scissors, glue sticks, and colored pencils in your bag. Keep an iPad, Chrome Book, or Laptop in the bag. Add specific materials to the bag for each tutoring session after your plans are done. Keep a notebook or binder such as these in your tutoring bag. The Tutoring Session 1. Greeting Greet the student and spend a minute or two asking how the day or week went. Include both school and after-school activities. If agreed upon and allowed, this would be the time to offer a healthy snack. 2. Five-minute warm-up This activity should be a review of a previous lesson. Keep it short and simple. 3. Requested Help Help the student with any assignments that the parent or teacher has requested your help with. Doing this first ensures that you won't run out of time. 4. Games and Activities This is the fun part! Break out all the games and activities that you found and prepare to support learning. 5. Closing Use an exit ticket or another form of assessment to track student learning. 6. Follow up Suggestions Use the last few minutes to discuss how to practice and apply skills. You may want to include the parent for this part. 7. Next Meeting Set up the next tutoring session. Use this freebie to summarize your session! 8. Keeping Records Add follow-up appointments to your calendar or planner. Remember to record financial information as directed by your accountant. Are you a subscriber yet?FREE Activity for new subscribers: Sign up for the Fourth Grade Frenzy newsletter!
I have been working on getting ready for the summer tutoring season and thought I would share some things I am working on with you all. One of the first things I do when I get a new tutoring student is have a conversation with the parents. It's so crucial to gain as much information
What comma rules do you need to know for the ACT or SAT? Here they are! Easy to learn. Easy to remember.
This fun pumpkin math game is a great way for 5th-8th graders to work on order of operations. This math activity is perfect for fall.
Here are 3 free PSAT prep resources specifically designed to help those getting ready to write the PSAT. One uses pen and paper, one is a website and one is an app - so something to
We have an excellent range of articles, infographics, videos, and other resources specifically designed in an easy-to-understand format which will assist you
This is the ultimate guide to creating an ESL lesson plan because once you get the system down, it's simple, endlessly repeatable and most importantly, EFFECTIVE. Here is the key: We're going to plan it backwards.
Many kids and young adults would benefit academically and socially by improving their executive functioning skills. These skills include: planning, organization, time management, task initation, working memory, metacognition, self-control, sustained attention, flexibility, and perseverance. If you n
How can you build effective lessons and feel in control of the class? Lesson plans are essential to planning and ultimately giving great ESL lessons. But isn’t making lesson plans long and arduous?
How to set up and implement a classroom behavior plan that really works, with advice from Smart Classroom Management's Michael Linsin.
How to Complete Your FAFSA: FAFSA Checklist and instructions for how to fill out your FAFSA including how to obtain a printable FAFSA Form.
The last two components of my math block are the math lesson and lesson assessment. I use the 5-E lesson model to teach new math content. I like the 5-E model because it allows the students to explore and discover the content on their own before I provide additional information and strategies. The 5-E model also allows me to facilitate the lesson through questioning and assess the students' understanding throughout the lesson through my observations. While I regularly plan my lessons using this format, I have found it necessary to adapt the format to fit the needs of my students. With that in mind, I will add that this lesson format may take me more than one day to complete and I sometimes complete several explore and explain cycles before getting to the Elaboration stage. It all depends on the students! I have included the lesson format below along with a description of each of the five Es and activity ideas that can be used to address each component.
This one's for all the students out there! Throughout my academic career, I went through package after package of notecards. From the normal sized notecards, to the large and half-sized notecards, it seemed I always had a stack in my backpack for studying. I think flashcards are a great way to study any subject - if you're going to be tested on something, chances are there's a way to use flashcards to study for it! Before you start making flashcards, here's what you need to figure out: What am I being asked to do on this test? What information will be presented, and what information will I need to know in order to respond? For example, if you know you are going to be asked about the key themes in literary works, chances are you will provided the title, and you will have to respond with the themes. The information that is being provided should be written on one side of the flashcard (I usually put in on the blank side), and what you will be expected to know should be written on the other side (the back). Below I've included pictures & explanations of the way I used flashcards for a few different subjects: Art History, French, Literature, and Sociology. For Art History flashcards, it's important to have an actual image on your card. Chances are, you will be provided an image, and you will be expected to provide a lot of information from just that image. That is why I have only the image on the front of the card, and everything I needed to know on the back: the artist, art movement/time period, date, and key themes and details. For the front of the card, you can use sketches or printed images, whichever is better for you. This format would also work well for any history course - just use an image or a name/event/concept on the front and details on the back. Flashcards are a great way to learn a language. For vocabulary, I recommend using the half-size notecards with your native language on one side and the language you're learning on the other. I would usually start studying by looking at the French term and try to guess the English term. Then, once I was more familiar with the terms, I would look at the English and try to quickly translate to French. I would often put 3-6 words on one card depending on the length/importance of each term. I also used regular & large-sized notecards for conjugations, grammar rules, and basic concepts. I would use different colored pens to make certain words pop out and to differentiate between definitions & examples. These cards are not used so much for memorization, but for quick & organized access to important information. In a literature class, you might be expected to write a short (or long) essay about a specific work, with only the title and a short excerpt provided. I used these cards to make sure I could identify the author, literary movement, and important themes when I was only provided the title. You also might be asked to write about a specific literary movement or theme in a literature class. I used these notecards when I knew I would be asked to compare/contrast two works in the same literary movement, and to be able to identify how each work was representative of that movement. Like the larger french flashcards, these are not so much for memorization as they are a summary of important information. For a sociology class (or other social studies courses), your knowledge of terminology is essential to sounding like you know what you're talking about. Often times, a teacher will look for a certain term in your answer, so vocabulary is very important. On these cards, I wrote the term/idea on one side and the details, definitions, and connected ideas on the other. You can use the cards in two ways: look at the definition and figure out the term, or look at the term and try to recall as much as you can about it. I know this post is quite wordy and has a lot of pictures, but hopefully it helps you in some way. When I was a student, I was always looking for ways to improve my study habits and find more efficient ways of studying! Do you use flashcards to study? If so, share your tips & tricks in the comments! XOXO
This free printable College Planner will help you manage your academic and personal life. It includes over thirty printable templates for organizing your schedules and keeping track of your assignm…
Executive functioning skills are getting a lot of attention right now in education. Honestly, it's not even the amount of attention that they deserve, though. Executive functions are essentially the building blocks for completing all tasks in life (in school and beyond). If you think of executive
Moms who fearlessly tackled fractions, phonics, and field trips suddenly question their ability to homeschool their children when it's time for high school. Facilitating the learning process (a.k.a. homeschool high school) for complex subjects like algebra, chemistry, logic, and Latin, requires no prerequisite knowledge in order to provide an environment where the student can learn those subjects successfully and competently through video instruction, tutoring, or online or community college courses.
Check out these private teaching activities and games for your ESL lessons. Keep things fresh and interesting in your 1-1 English classes.
Curriculum Map for Preschool, Pre-K, and Kindergarten for the whole year! Year plan, month plans, and week plans by theme.
This Annotating Text-Teach, Model, & Apply activity will encourage your students to learn how to annotate properly and efficiently.
*This post affiliates links. To learn more about this, please read my disclosure policy. For the next few weeks, I’d like to focus on struggling readers. Struggling readers are a passion of mine. I’ve tutored and taught many of them, from K through 5th grades, and have seen them become confident and capable readers (who actually enjoy ... Read More about Struggling Readers Series: 10 Things Struggling Readers Need
Can you imagine speaking and writing without punctuation? Punctuation tells us how a sentence should sound. Without it, all of us would be speaking tonelessly like robots! No one wants to sound so…
A break down of the books and articles today's college freshmen are reading in this English Composition course.
One of my favorite ways to assess my students' essay-writing skills without actually assigning a traditional essay is with the graphic essay. A graphic essay
Taking good, informative notes can be the difference between scraping by and acing a class. Having all the information available to study from that were in each lecture / from the text books will h…
