Guidelines for Tutoring
Prepare for Tutoring
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Read and study the book Help America Read: A Handbook for Volunteers by Gay Su Pinnell and
Irene Fountas.
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Attend a Freedom Readers training session (contact Tracy Bailey for dates and times)
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You will receive a volunteer tool kit with supplies (e.g. paper, pencils, crayons/markers). It can
be left at the facility or taken with you.
Getting Started: The First Meeting
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Write a letter to your reading partner and bring it to your first tutoring session. Include
information about you and your family. Introduce your reading buddy to your favorite books.
Bring pictures and artifacts if possible. Encourage the young scholar to write back and set up a
regular routine of exchanging letters.
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Get to know your young scholar. On the first day, give the “Getting to Know You” survey FIRST.
View this as a relationship building activity. Keep it natural.
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Start a folder for your young scholar to be kept at the facility. All information about the young
scholar and his/her progress should be stored in this folder. This includes:
o “Getting to Know You” survey
o "Reading Goals and Records" form
o “Lesson and Observation Record” form (added each week)
o Speeches prepared by your young scholar each week
o Drawings, essays, poems, tests, letters – anything that the student does in a meeting
Planning and Facilitating Each Meeting
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Prepare a brief plan before each meeting using the “Lesson and Observation Record” form (a
sample is provided). Options for your one-on-one time with a young scholar include:
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Interactive read aloud
Shared/modeled reading
Modeled/shared/interactive writing
Poetry sharing/response
Reader's theater/process drama
Choral reading/reader's theater
Interactive vocabulary
Interactive edit
Handwriting
Current events
Test reading and writing (standardized tests) or testing comprehension
Word study
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Letter writing
Guided reading (introduce text, read text, discuss and revisit, graphic organizer)
Essay or poetry writing.
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Before each meeting, choose a book for your scholar and figure out how you can support the
young scholar through it. Try to expose students to a variety of books….realistic fiction,
historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction, fables, myths, biographies, informational books,
etc.
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The last half of the session can be spent with the book of student choice.
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Help the student prepare for his/her one-minute speech which will be presented to the group
at the end of the meeting. The topic will be announced each week.
Wrapping-up Each Meeting
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Encourage students to read at home.
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Remind students to bring their favorite books with them to be re-read. We'll keep them in a
"Beloved Books" box.
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Record the book(s) that your young scholar read on the Reading Goals and Records form help
the scholar keep track of pages read using this form.
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Record your reflections on and observations of the meeting with your young scholar using the
“Lesson and Observation Record” form.
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Store all forms and student work in the student folder.
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Return student folder and tutor tool kit to the storage location.
Suggestions for Effective Tutoring Sessions
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Make a brief, written outline for your session
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Plan for a variety of activities
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Have materials organized and ready before you start with the child.
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Include both reading and writing.
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Make sure the child is actively engaged.
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Keep a lively pace (don’t get stuck on one activity).
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Make sure the child is always successful (not struggling).
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Record notes about how the session went and points you want to remember next time.
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Reorganize materials and make a brief outline for the next session.
General Tips for Tutors
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Create a risk free environment for learners.
Get to know students’ interests and backgrounds.
Have conversations.
Listen hard and be set for diversity.
Value the students’ individual communities from which they come.
Keep students interested and engaged.
Provide opportunities for students to connect what they know with new information.
Provide individual attention and tailored instruction for students.
Work regularly with students in a one-on-one setting.
Be persistent but flexible. Expect surprises.
Be able to change direction when it is necessary.
Read students’ signals (when they are comfortable, uncomfortable, enjoying activities, etc.).
Help students experience success.
Be positive and work from students’ strengths.
Praise students and look for their approximations (focus on ‘the half right’).
Surround students with quality texts.
Provide opportunities for social interaction through such activities as shared reading, buddy
reading, interactive writing, choral reading, songs, poetry, and rewritten books.
Learn from other people.
Resources for Testing Student Comprehension
Alpha-Boxes. Have the student name one thing from the book (e.g. character names, places, items
of importance, things that happened) that begins with each letter of the alphabet.
Quizzes. Give a short quiz to the student about what they read. You may quiz them on the plot
(what happened first, second, third), character names, places, major themes. This can be done
orally or written.
Venn-Diagram. Have the student use ven-diagrams (overlapping circles) to compare himself to the
main character in the story. The traits that the student and the main character have in common
should be listed in the overlap between the two circles.
Written Summary. Ask the student to write a short summary of the book, including the plot and
main characters. This will help develop writing skills also, especially for older scholars.
Common Issues and Solutions
Issue: Student skips words s/he does not know.
Possible Solutions:
Reading is about meaning-making. Encourage young scholars to use all of the information
presented in the book including pictures, surrounding words, and the context of the story. If the
scholar skips words, but still derives a meaning that makes sense, do not interrupt the flow of
reading session to correct the child. .
Issue: Student fills in words s/he doesn’t know with some similar sounding word.
Possible Solutions:
Don't interrupt the flow of reading. If the scholar can make sense of the text this way, fine. Focus
on what the reader is doing well. Praise the “half-right”.
Issue: Student gets frustrated when s/he does not know a word or you will not give the answers.
Possible Solutions:
The reading session should be enjoyable. Don't force a student to struggle with unfamiliar words
for a long time. If he doesn't know a word, tell him what it is. Progress is the goal here.
Issue: Student reads the words on the page, but does not understand what s/he has read.
Possible Solutions:
This is a comprehension issue. As a tutor, you might consider recommending books that are a bit
less challenging. Once you get to know the scholar, his interests, and abilities, you should try to
match the child with a "just right book". This is a text that isn't too challenging or too easy.
Issue: Student would rather talk, draw, play, etc than read.
Possible Solutions:
This almost always means that the child does not yet find reading pleasurable. In this situation, it
might be best to read to the student. Choose books with which you connect and can read with a
great deal of excitement. Also, find out what the child is interested in and find books on that topic
which would be fun and easy for the student, either to read or just look at. After the reading, try to
tailor your conversations around the book. Encourage the young scholar to draw pictures that
reflect their understanding of the text. Also, the two of you might try making up your own stories.
The scholar could draw the pictures and you could provide the words.
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More Advanced Strategies for Expanding Meaning
Connecting--To relate one thing to another—the reader must connect using funds of knowledge from
personal, world, and text experience
Inferring--To make a decision or form an opinion by reasoning from known facts or evidence—the reader
must go beyond the literacy meaning of a text to derive what is not there but is implied
Summarizing--To present the general idea in brief form—the reader must put together important
information while reading
Synthesizing--To bring together parts or elements to form a whole—The reader must put together
information from text, personal, world, and literary knowledge to transact with the text, or create new
information
Analyzing—To separate and break a whole into its parts to find out their nature, proportion, function,
interrelationships, and properties—the reader must closely examine elements of a text to achieve greater
understanding of how it is constructed
Critiquing—To make judgments through analyzing the qualities and evaluating them—the reader must judge
or evaluate a text based on personal, world, or text knowledge.
Adapted from Fountas & Pinnell, 2001 pp. 312-318