What a first tutoring session should cover

Reading and study habits, grades 2 to 8$38/lessonPhiladelphia

Half an hour is enough to tell whether somebody can teach your child. Here is what a good one does with it, and what to listen for from the next room.

Jul 14, 20266 minutes

It opens on the last graded thing

A good first session starts with the most recent test or homework that came back marked. Not a syllabus, and not a placement test the tutor wrote — the paper the school already graded is the only evidence in the room that nobody has an interest in.

Listen for questions, not explaining

A tutor who spends twenty-five of thirty minutes explaining has not found out anything. The half hour is a diagnosis, and a diagnosis is made of questions. You can hear the difference through a door.

Two questions worth asking out loud

Ask what they think the actual problem is, and ask what the first four weeks would look like. Both answers should be specific enough that they could turn out to be wrong. *We will build confidence* is not one of those answers.

What it is not

It is not a lesson and it is not a sales call. Nobody should come out of a first half hour holding a package to buy — on this site the first thirty minutes are free and nothing is sold inside them.

Every guide on the shelf

Who wrote this

Ellen Mercer

Reading and study habits, grades 2 to 8

Twenty-two years as a reading specialist in Philadelphia public schools. Parents get a note after every lesson saying what we read and what to practise before the next one.

A fifty-minute lesson: $38
Rated by 188 students: 4.9
On this shelf: 2 guides