Tutor profile: Rebecca C.

I spend a lot of time studying and when I take a test, I think I have done really well. Then I get the grade and I find out that I did terrible. What am I doing wrong?

I don't know what you are doing wrong, yet! Let's look at how you are currently studying and what is actually happening on your tests. Then we can figure out together what you have to do to change how you are preparing for your tests. There is no one way of studying that works for everyone. So we have to look at several ways to study and see which one works the best for you and for the types of tests you are taking. I will teach you how to use the strategies and I will work with you to put them into practice.

I want my child to be ready for kindergarten. We have been working on letter names, saying the ABC's, and counting. What can you add to help my child?

Children between the ages of 3 - 5 are learning all sorts of things that are getting them ready for school. Play and fun should be the learning tools for this age group. Some of the most important things that I will work on with your child in reading are expanding phonemic awareness skills (the ability to hear and manipulate sounds, like rhyming, blending and segmenting words, etc.), letter sounds, and building vocabulary and background information. In math, we will work on number sense (an understanding of the world of numbers, not just counting), one to one correspondence, subitization (the ability to look at a set and know how many are in the set without actually counting it), and counting from skills (starting to count from any number other than 1). All of this will be done as we have fun and play lots of games, read books, and ask lots of questions.

I hate to read. I don't know what all the words are and without pictures I can't figure them out. How are you going to teach me to read if no one else has been able to?

First, I want you to learn to love reading, so I am going to teach you how to read in a different way than anyone else has ever tried to teach you. You and I will work together to figure out exactly what is giving you trouble with reading and then we will make a plan to fix it. Learning should be fun and you should be successful at it. So we are going to take one step at a time together. I promise I will do my best to teach you if you promise to do your best with the activities. Reading is not supposed to be frustrating, it is supposed to be something you can enjoy and learn from. Are you ready to tackle this together?