Tips on How to Tutor Elementary Students

Video Transcript

"Some tips on how to tutor elementary school students. This is something that I have done a little bit of, and my mom who was also a tutor for a while did some of, or a lot of rather, and the biggest difference obviously between them and high school is, elementary students and high school students is the lack of discipline, or alternatively you can think about it as the necessity for engagement, this is where you have to make everything you're doing fun, or else their attention is just not going to be on you. Now a lot of times with an ADD child, their attention is not going to be on you even if it is fun, or if it is, it's only 10 seconds of attention, so there still needs to be an element of the parent letting the child know- I mean you still need to discuss with the parent what you're going to do as far as discipling goes, or what you're not going to do as far as disciplining goes, and how much you're responsible for and how much the parent is responsible for, and how much the kid is responsible for. Beyond the differences and discipline, there's also the difference in patience that you need to have with an elementary school kid that is not necessary with a high schooler, because high schoolers are generally more precocious, and they know a pretty significant amount, they're almost in college, where as, elementary school kids know very little and you need to explain the concept of 1 or 0 or 2 2, and that is something that requires more patience obviously than tutoring a high schooler. It also requires one to think differently, think on many levels, because while you're explaining 2 2, you need to be making sure that the kid is understanding, and trying to engage him as much as possible, which is taking a lot of responsibility for the interpersonal nature of the communication."