Because I've often had parents ask me about my qualifications and strategy for tutoring English, I thought I'd write up a brief description of this information. First, I want to say that my goal as a tutor is to have my students not only do well on standardized tests like the SAT but also be strong, efficient reader and writers. Strong reading and writing skill will help my students be the best they can be in secondary school and in college, and serve them in their careers as well. Now I’ll first discuss my qualifications for tutoring middle-school and high-school students in English and then my strategy. At the bottom of the strategy section, I've uploaded an example of an essay I asked a student to write, my corrections to it, and some notes I give to students on the usage of commas.
I’m qualified to tutor English my standardized test scores, grades, extracurriculars, and tutoring experience. In English. I scored perfectly on the SAT critical reading and writing sections (800’s) and on theAP English language or composition test (5). I maintained very high GPA’s in both high school and college (about 3.9 without 4.3 A+’s or about 4.1 with 4.3 A+’s). In high school, I was the editor in chief of a magazine and a successful debator in New York City, winning several Manhattan-wide tournaments (to be a successful debator, one has to write good arguments). I have over 300 hours of experience tutoring and over 30 hours of experience tutoring English to middle-school and high-school students.
My strategy for tutoring English is to develop each of my student’s vocabulary, other interpretive and critical reading skills, and writing skills. To develop the student’s vocabulary, I will typically first assess his or her vocabulary. I will do this by two ways. First, I discuss with him or her words from a vocabulary books like the Wordly Wise series of books. This series has books for each grade level, each with several hundred suggested words to be learned during that grade level. My second technique is to administer vocabulary-testing parts of standardized exams like the Secondary School Admission Test (for selective high shcools) and the SAT. These two techniques allow me to accurately assess my student’s current vocabulary level. Afterward, I will select vocabulary books appropriate to my student’s vocabulary level. I will assign to the student a certain number of words and exercises (e.g., write sample sentences with the words or fill in the blanks in pre-made sentences) to learn and do respectively each week. At weekly meetings, I will take some time to clarify the definitions of difficult words and to check some exercises, but I also rely on my student to learn the words by doing daily exercises outside of weekly meetings with me.
I think of reading skills as falling into two types. There are those that are utilized for understanding or thinking critically about a sentence or a paragraph or a passage of several paragraphs on say a standarized test like the SAT. These skills involve appreciating and responding on a word-by-word level to a story or an argument. And there are the skills that are utilized for responding to a much longer piece of writing, like a chapter in an academic book, or a whole book. These skills involve following and keeping notes on a story or an argument on a much higher level. The former type of skills are foundational for developing the latter type of skills. However, the latter type of skills in combination with the former type of skills is really what real life requires (e.g., working in a company and having to read lots of reports). It’s unfortunate that the latter type of skills can’t be directly tested on standardized tests. I develop the former type of reading skills (passage level and lower) by doing reading-comprehension passages of an appropriate level for the student. I take the passages from books for tests like the SSAT and the SAT. I’m familiar with many of these books and so can find passages of appropriate difficulty for my student. To develop reading skills on the passage level and lower, I also ask my students to read articles and short book excerpts and to answer questions I pose to them. I chose articles and books that interest my students. Magazines that I have my students read range from Time and Sports Illustrated to The New Yorker, Commentary, The New Republic, The Atlantic, The Economist, The New York Review of Books, and The Times Literary Supplement (TLS). Books that I have my students read have included Michael Lewis's books and E. H. Ghombrich's history of art, The Story of Art. To develop reading skills on the level of articles and books, I will help my student with research projects like history papers. I will help my student find sources like books and journal articles, evaluate them, read them, and take notes on them, as well as help him or her make schedules and plans for the whole process.
Just as I think there are two types of writing skills, I think there are two types of writing skills. First, there are writing skills on the level of the sentence, the paragraph, and the essay of a few paragraph, like the essay that students have to write for the SAT writing section. Second, there are writing skills on the level of longer writing assignments like a 6-page paper. I develop the first type of writing skills by going over grammar and style as discussed in books like Little Brown Handbook for Writers, Strunk and White’s Elements of style, the Fowlers’ and Joseph Williams’s books on writing. Now, the first two books I’ve listed are high-school level books, and the later two are college-level; therefore, I’m careful to simplify the material from the book to a level appropriate for my student. I will sometimes address the same point of grammar or style several times in a year, each at an appropriate level for the student at that time in the year. To develop the writing skills on the level of larger papers, I will help my student with longer papers he or she has to write. Specifically, I will help my student plan the writing process, breaking it down into mutliple drafts, and help my student focus on the ideas before grammar and style. Thus, as you can see, I have extensive qualifications and an effective strategy for tutoring English.
Here's an an example of an essay I asked a 10th grade student of my to write and my corrections. The essay is on the advantages and disadvantages of standardized testing. The main things I emphasized to the student as we went over the essay were accurate word choice, correct comma usage, and making a clear distinction between standardized testing in general and the No Child Left Behind Act as an specific implementation of standardized testing.
Here's an example of notes I give to students on grammar. These notes are on comma usage. I recommend downloading the notes and looking at them in Microsoft Word instead of looking at them in Google Documents, so that the outline format will display properly.