HIRING THE RIGHT READING TUTOR FOR HIGH SCHOOLERS

Additional duties include:

• Providing literacy tutoring for elementary, middle school, and high school students that are reading and writing below their grade level.
• Work with students that have special educational needs, such as dyslexia or ADHD.
• Individual tuition for K-12 students on learning to read, language acquisition, and reading comprehension.
• Reading tutoring sessions.
• Teaching students to expand their vocabulary, to improve their standardized test scores.

Of course, when tutoring a student either in a small group or one-on-one, there are important steps that can be taken to help develop reading skills more successfully than previous instruction efforts.

• Direct instruction: direct instruction presents information clearly and with very limited possibility of learning materials being misunderstood or confused. It is useful when reading because language rules and patterns can be instructed upon directly, meaning that guesswork for reading or spelling difficult words can be reduced.
• Incremental instruction: incremental instruction is when tutoring begins at a basic level, ensuring fundamentals are covered, and that advanced skills are approached when the student is prepared. New knowledge is introduced at logical points, meaning that students can progressively improve their understanding, with less struggle than a typical classroom instruction approach.
• Phonogram instruction: learning reading and writing by memorizing rules for different combinations of letters can be overwhelming for some students. For example, when the phonogram ‘-dge’ appears in a word, a student can learn that the pronunciation is almost always /j/, as in badge or judge. Phonogram memorization works not only with reading, but also spelling.
• Separate instruction for reading and spelling: while both skills are important, reading and spelling require different skill sets (as well as different teaching techniques) and are best focused on separately

• Short, frequent lessons: The best way to establish effective learning is with regular lessons. Especially for younger students, or students that have already endured a long school day before tutoring, short, regular lessons are more beneficial than long, sporadic ones (where attention can wander and pace can suffer). 
• Prioritize review: When a student is attempting to retain the maximum possible amount of a lesson, consistent review is essential. Spaced repetition is a review method that works with human psychology to optimally reinforce lessons and ensure that the maximum amount of learned material is retained with efficient review at set intervals.

• At grade level 9 to 10, students should be able to analyze explicit meaning as well as inferences made in a text, citing strong and thorough textual evidence to support their analysis. They should be confident in finding the central idea or theme of a text, analyzing how it develops, emerges, and how it is refined by details. A student should be capable of providing an objective summary of the text, as well as able to analyze how complex characters develop over the course of a text, interact with others, and how they advance the plot or develop the theme.
• At grade level 11 to 12, students should be able to do all of the above, as well as detect and analyze what a text purposely leaves uncertain, determine multiple themes or core ideas of a text (including how they interact) and analyze how an author’s choices regarding setting, sequence of events, and introduction and development of characters and archetypes affect the story.

Tutoring 4 Less offers classroom settings with its reading tutors. All of our tutors, whether they are working on math, science, test prep, or reading, produce individualized learning plans for their students in order to provide the best possible learning opportunities for each individual. Tutoring 4 Less has a specialized academic assessment that determines every student’s strengths, weaknesses, and particular learning style. This assessment is used in the creation of each individualized learning plan, from pre-K to college level students. Tutoring is not only beneficial for specific literacy skills. Tutoring can help with student focus and organization, helping to establish and support good study skills and build an efficient work system that will serve a student well at college or in the professional sphere.

At Tutoring 4 Less, we strive to reach as large a cross-section of the student population of Los Angeles County as possible. Many tutoring companies charge around $50 an hour for access to reading tutors. We don’t do that. Our rates are more affordable for families across Los Angeles. With a willing student, our tutors will deliver all of the following results, at a great rate:

• Increasing reading speed
• Increased reading comprehension
• Effective study skills
• Increased reading skills
• A deeper interest in reading

Our reading tutors can prepare students for tests that measure literacy and confidence with the written word, such as the SAT and ACT. They are also highly beneficial to students undergoing preparation for college.