Becoming a Reading Tutor

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Samir Malik and I'm a private tutor for middle school and high school students here in the Austin area. Today we're going to be discussing about how to become a reading tutor. Now, first and foremost, it is credential for an individual who wants to become a reading tutor to have the appropriate requirements or credentials to be able to take on that role of being a reading tutor. Now, the credentials would include but are not limited to having an English background, having a background in creative literature, having a background in let's say psychology or sociology or even history for that matter. Just a background which has given that tutor some strong experience in reading and understanding and comprehending. The next step would be for the student to be able... for the tutor to be able to advertise his or her services to the community to let people know that he or she is a reading tutor and would like to provide his or her services to the community. There's several ways about going about doing this. One, is of course advertising in the lessons and tutorials section on Craigslist. Another way is to contact various administrations of independent schools and speaking to those administrative officers at these schools about his or her services and wanting to be a reading tutor and provide this service that he or she has to students at their schools. This way, members of the administrative office can inform their faculty staff that they have somebody on their list who has the appropriate credentials to being a reading tutor to their students at their independent schools. Another way is just creating a website, an online website for their services, and this will give them some online publicity along with Craigslist of course about their services. So there's multiple ways for a reading tutor to inform and market his or her services to the community. It just takes a little bit of effort from the tutor's perspective and from the tutor's side to able to inform the community. Now becoming an effective reading tutor also is essential because once that tutor has taken on a student, the tutor needs to understand that it's not only getting the student to read a book or read an assignment, it is crucial for that tutor to help the student understand and comprehend what the student is reading. A way about going about doing this would be for the tutor to let the student pick out a book, any book which the student likes. Once the student has chosen a book of his or her liking, then the tutor can create assignments, daily assignments for that student. For example, the tutor can tell the student to read about twenty to thirty minutes a day from the book the student has chosen. Upon completion of that twenty to thirty minutes of daily reading, the tutor can assign the student to write about three or four sentences summarizing what the student has read. This will not only help the student understand what he or she has read but it will help him or her articulate what the student has read once the tutor comes back for a second round or a second session where the tutor and the student can go over collectively what the student has read from that previous day or that previous week's reading assignment. This is how to become a reading tutor."