How do you tutor Math and English?

Question

When you tutor, what do you do? Do you start where the child needs help (eg: what his teacher is teaching), or do you start from somewhere else? Do you also have to give him/her "homework?" And if you do, do you have to buy workbooks and give him those pages?

Answer 1

I thought up a way to help teach myself math when I was younger:

You take a deck of cards and draw 5 cards from the top of the deck. Then you do a basic cut of the deck and draw 5 more cards. Then separate the cards between black and red. Then you add up the cards making sure the blacks have their own score and reds have their own score. The numbered cards have their own value, obviously. But the face cards the ace though... The jacks are worth 15, the queens 20, and kings 25, and the ace 50. (To help make sure you're learning about higher numbers, too.) Add them all up then there's a second round.

Shuffle the deck, keeping the cards you've already drawn out of the deck. Then draw 10 more cards and add them up like you did last time. Then add up the 2 totals from the first and second rounds, again, making sure the reds have their own score and blacks have theirs. Then see who wins, red or black.

For subtraction you can do this 2 ways. With the totals from addition draw 10 cards and just subtract instead of add. *Or*, draw one card and continue to subtract from the totals you made up from the addition until you hit 0. The second option is better for those who could stand to take it a little bit slower.

If you are teaching them, tutoring them, then you should know a thing or two yourself, eh? You should be able to make up your own test. And there's an added advantage to that as well. You will be able to make a test just for the individual student. You will know what to put on/into this test to really get their brains working harder and help them with their worst subjects. Where to start also depends on the individual students. If he/she has been struggling for a while now then it's possible what the teacher is teaching is possible too advance for him or her, and you should then start with a lower level. Go back to the basics if needed and then help them so what their teacher(s) are/is trying to teach them now will be cakewalk for them, instead of walking over hot cols... Just remember, just because the kid is in a higher grad level, doesn't necessarily mean he/she is at that same grad level with certain subjects. Bring them up to there.

Much luck to you.

Answer 2

As a teacher, when I suggested tutoring, I expected that the tutor would work on the concepts that we were working on in class.  If the child was a long way behind (eg we are doing long division, and this child doesn't know his timestables ) you would work on the background material-- have to teach the timestables first.  In some instances, you may need to expect homework -- like working on memorizing those timetables with mom, but most of the time, I would say no homework.  The reason the kid is getting tutoring is because he doesn't keep up with the work at school in the first place.  Sometimes all that you may have to do is work with the kid on the homework that comes from the school.  I do not think that you should be expected to purchase supplies for this kid.  If you are unsure of where to start, contact the child's teacher and see what her expectations of  your tutoring are.