Tutor Tips

1. Time Management
-Tutors can work with learners to create personalized study schedules that accommodate their work and family commitments.
– Teach effective time management techniques to help learners optimize their study time.

2. Financial Constraints
– Help learners explore financial aid options, scholarships, and grants available to adult students.
– Provide information about part-time work or flexible job opportunities that can support their education.

3. Academic Skills
– Offer guidance and resources on improving writing, research, and study skills.
– Conduct regular skill-building exercises to reinforce learning.

4. Fear of Failure
– Build a supportive and non-judgmental learning environment to boost learners’ confidence.
– Celebrate small victories and progress to help learners stay motivated.

5. Technological Challenges
– Provide basic computer literacy training to learners who are not familiar with technology.
– Offer hands-on experience with online learning platforms and tools.

6. Feeling Isolated
– Encourage group discussions and collaborative learning among adult learners.
– Organize social events or study groups to foster a sense of community.

7. Family and Social Pressures
– Host workshops or information sessions for family members to understand the importance of education and show support.
– Encourage learners to communicate openly with their loved ones about their educational goals.

8. Adapting to Classroom Dynamics
– Conduct role-playing exercises to help learners practice engaging with professors and classmates.
– Arrange campus tours or orientation programs to familiarize learners with the learning environment.

9. Coping with Change
– Offer counseling or support services to help learners cope with the emotional aspects of transitioning to postsecondary education.
– Guide learners in setting realistic expectations and understanding that change takes time.

10. Choosing the Right Path
– Conduct career assessments or interest inventories to help learners explore suitable educational paths.
– Provide information on different programs and courses available, highlighting their alignment with learners’ career goals.

Overall, literacy tutors should adopt a student-centered approach, recognizing the unique challenges faced by each adult learner and tailoring their support accordingly. Building a strong rapport with learners and being empathetic to their circumstances will contribute to their success in overcoming obstacles and achieving their educational aspirations.

Definition: Growth mindset is the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication, effort, and a willingness to learn. It contrasts with a fixed mindset, which believes that abilities are fixed and unchangeable.

Importance for Adult Learners: Growth mindset is particularly crucial for adult learners as it promotes motivation, resilience, and a positive attitude towards learning. It helps them embrace challenges, learn from failures, and develop essential skills like problem-solving and critical thinking.

Key Characteristics: Individuals with a growth mindset:

• Embrace challenges: They see challenges as opportunities for growth rather than obstacles to avoid.
• Value effort and persistence: They understand that effort and hard work are essential for improvement and success.
• Embrace learning from failures: They view setbacks and mistakes as valuable learning experiences.
• Believe in the power of learning: They have confidence in their ability to learn and develop new skills.
• Seek out feedback: They actively seek constructive feedback and use it to improve.

Strategies for Fostering Growth Mindset:

• Setting realistic goals: Encourage learners to set specific, achievable goals that promote growth and progress.
• Emphasizing the process: Focus on the learning journey rather than solely on the end result, highlighting the importance of effort, strategy, and improvement.
• Encouraging perseverance: Remind learners to persist through challenges and setbacks, emphasizing the value of determination and resilience.
• Providing constructive feedback: Offer feedback that highlights areas of improvement and provides guidance for further development.
• Cultivating a supportive environment: Foster a safe and encouraging learning environment that values effort, embraces mistakes as learning opportunities, and promotes collaboration and support among learners.
• Encouraging self-reflection: Guide learners to reflect on their progress, identify strengths and weaknesses, and set new learning goals.

Overcoming Obstacles: Address common obstacles to growth mindset, such as self-doubt, negative self-talk, fear of failure, and fixed mindset triggers. Help learners develop strategies to challenge and reframe negative thoughts and beliefs.

Warning: Critics express concern that the growth mindset concept can be misused to shift blame onto individuals who face obstacles or fail to achieve desired outcomes. It may overlook structural barriers and societal inequalities, placing undue pressure on individuals to overcome systemic challenges solely through effort and mindset.

* From Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset

When it comes to reading comprehension, it is helpful to find ways to relate and find commonality with what we are reading. One method of learning which we all use is that of relating something that isn’t familiar to something that is familiar – almost always learning by associating the abstract with the concrete. This association allows us to develop a foundational knowledge upon which we can further build understanding.

When it comes to helping students develop their literacy skills, it can be useful to relate or apply a given piece of literature to ourselves. As we lead by example and encourage our students to do the same, they will be able to not only read single words and comprehend their meaning individually, they will be able to extract big-picture meaning from the literature and determine how it relates to them.

Although it may seem like this is a skill to be developed later-on in one’s journey to literacy, developing this skill early will allow the student to develop a habit of extracting larger meaning through interconnected language and relating it to their life and experiences. This skill will not only make leisure reading more enjoyable, but will create a functional literacy that will serve them well in many aspects of their life.

This guide is your cheat sheet for tutoring tips dealing with students with basic literacy skills.

 Tutor Read Aloud

• Introduce the title, author, and illustrator of the book when you start.
• Ask a lot of questions! Check for understanding every page or two, and review skills like predicting and making connections.
• Be animated and expressive! If you’re excited, your student will be too.

Worksheets

• Consider checking out one of the workbooks in either the Endeavor, Challenger, or Voyager series.
• Ensure sentences are complete with a capitalized first letter and correct punctuation.
• You can assign sections for homework or go over them during your session.

Roadmap

•  Consider creating a Reading Goals Roadmap with checkpoints to help students achieve goals
• Revise Roadmap as needed as skills increase and goals change

Take Reading Home

• Ask your student about his/her Take Reading Home book at least once a week.
• Consider having your student write a book report once they finish a book.
• Help your student with his/her book report during your session if he/she is having trouble completing it.

Chunking

One highly effective strategy for struggling readers is teaching chunking — breaking longer words into smaller, manageable parts. Many learners feel overwhelmed when they see a long word and may guess or skip it entirely. Chunking gives them a clear, step-by-step way to approach unfamiliar words with confidence.

Instead of trying to read a whole word at once, encourage learners to look for meaningful parts such as prefixes, suffixes, syllables, or smaller known words inside the larger word. For example:

• unhelpful → un – help – ful
• replay → re – play
• information → in – for – ma – tion

Teaching common prefixes (un-, re-, pre-) and suffixes (-ing, -ed, -ful, -tion) gives learners tools they can apply across many words. This strengthens decoding skills and improves word recognition over time.

You can practice chunking by:

• Having learners underline or highlight word parts
• Clapping or tapping out syllables
• Covering parts of a word and revealing one chunk at a time
• Writing each chunk separately, then blending them together

As learners become more comfortable breaking words apart, they begin to recognize patterns automatically. This reduces guessing, increases reading accuracy, and improves comprehension because they are processing words more carefully. Most importantly, chunking gives readers a practical strategy they can use independently outside of tutoring sessions.

 Students with dyslexia require a clear process to understand many concepts (especially how to read), but clear, explicit phonics instruction is beneficial for every student. Here are some tips from Shantell Berrett Blake, dyslexia specialist and Director of Professional Services at Reading Horizons, to help you accommodate the needs of every learner in your classroom, including those with dyslexia.

1. Provide one-step directions.

2. Extend time for reading and writing assignments.

3. Preview and review.

4. Post the schedule for the day or class period.

5. Avoid habituation by keeping instruction between 10–15 minutes and providing a variety of activities for practice.

6. Never expect students with dyslexia to take notes without a visual outline or a friend to be a note-taker.

7. Set a good pace.

8. Assume nothing—connect everything.

You can learn more about how to implement each of these strategies in 8 Classroom Accommodations for Dyslexia (That Benefit ALL Students).

English has many homophones – words that sound identical but mean different things. These are challenging for many English speakers to master. For example, it is not uncommon to see the words loose and lose mixed up, as well as the words principle and principal. They’re, their, and there are also commonly confused for each other.

It may be helpful to focus on a few pairs of words and learn what makes them different from each other, and then help your student practice using the correct term by making fill in the blank sentences. For example:

–       The shirt was too big, it had a ______fit. (loose / lose)

–       The school ______ was kind and very helpful. (principle / principal)

–       The neighbor was sad because ______ lawnmower broke. (they’re / their / there)

Or perhaps you could work with your student to come up with sentences that use each term properly. Some commonly confused words can be found here.

Circumstances such as food security, homelessness, and mental health play pivotal roles in shaping an individual’s capacity to learn. These challenges create an environment of profound instability, where basic needs become uncertain and demanding attention, leaving minimal cognitive and emotional resources for educational pursuits. The absence of consistent access to nutritious meals due to food insecurity hampers cognitive development and concentration, impeding the brain’s capacity to engage fully in learning tasks. Homelessness exacerbates this by subjecting individuals to chronic stress and transience, disrupting the stability necessary for effective learning. Moreover, struggling with mental health issues adds yet another layer of complexity, as conditions like anxiety and depression can cloud focus, erode self-esteem, and make absorbing new information an uphill battle. In such circumstances, addressing these foundational needs and ensuring holistic support becomes essential to creating a conducive learning environment, as learners can only thrive when their basic physical and psychological needs are met.

If your student is facing difficult circumstances—such as housing instability, food insecurity, or other unmet basic needs—that are affecting their ability to learn, please don’t hesitate to speak with a staff member. We’re here to help and can connect them with supportive resources.

One of the best things we can do to nurture a problem solving atmosphere with our students is to create a “toolbox” of strategies we can turn to when deciding how to understand and solve a problem.

Strategies might include:

• Look for a pattern
• Make a table
• Make an organized list
• Act it out
• Draw a picture
• Use objects
• Guess and check
• Work backwards
• Write an equation
• Solve a simpler (or similar) problem

Struggling through a problem can either feel demoralizing or productive. Using a list of strategies and learning how to try one and then another encourages students to persevere and helps to make the struggle feel like learning instead of failure.

Will your password survive the summer? Most passwords won’t! With the number of data breaches occurring daily, there is an 99% chance that you’re using a password that is already on a list of “known passwords” and in the hands of miscreants. Known passwords are like having a key: all a bad actor needs to do is find the lock. You can safely check to see if your password is already known by the hackers. 

Source: UEN

Chances are that you already use two-factor authentication (2FA) on at least one online service. Two-factor authentication is a process that can improve the security of your online accounts significantly over just using a password. Many online services have a 2FA option, but statistics show that few people are using them. Increase your security by turning on 2FA wherever you can. 

Keeping software up-to-date is key in the constant battle against miscreants on the Internet. Major software companies regularly roll out newer versions of popular software and phase out inefficient or obsolete programs. Cybercriminals can exploit vulnerabilities in old software, so it is important to always use “actively supported” software and avoid the versions no longer being supported.

Removable Media: Memory cards and thumb drives provide a convenient way to move data between devices, but USB devices and cards you find laying about could contain malware. Highlighting the danger of cyberattack, researchers recently scattered hundreds of thumb drives around a college campus. Individuals took nearly all of the drives with 45% opening files on the unknown USB sticks. Security experts say you should never trust a storage device that you didn’t buy, and you should not insert an unknown memory device into your computer, even if you got it from someone you trust.

This month’s tutor tip is a digital security tip. Whether you are tutoring at the library, or volunteering or taking classes at Project Read, these tips can help make sure your personal information and your student’s information is kept secure.

Digital Security Tip:

Visiting websites that offer free services or products is a common way to compromise your devices. Some examples are sites with free upgrades, plugins, or digital products for popular games such as Minecraft, Fortnite, Call of Duty, or League of Legends.

Sometimes we need the discipline to put the security of our devices above the satisfaction of downloading a free plugin that might offer an edge in an online game. Free items often come with unseen costs down the road. If it seems too good to be true, don’t click on it.

Credit: UEN

Digital Security Tip:

Keeping your computer’s operating system and software up to date is critical. Always install the latest security updates for your devices.

Ensure that automatic updates are enabled for your operating system and other software.

Use web browsers such as Chrome or Firefox that receive frequent, automatic security updates.

Digital Security Tip:

In a post-pandemic world, working by remote has become routine. But working from home, your car or a coffee shop requires extra vigilance toward data safety. Over the next three months we will have tips that will help you secure your work area.

• Keep work devices and personal devices separate. We tend to relax our guard when doing personal tasks such as email (opening attachments), shopping (downloading coupons), or gaming (downloading add-ons).
• Using a work computer for personal tasks could lead to moments of carelessness that might compromise company data, inadvertently share intellectual property, or introduce malware into company networks.
• And the risk is even greater when we allow kids to use a company device. It’s better to use work computers for work, and personal devices for personal tasks.

Digital Security Tip:

• Keep sensitive information out of sight. Whether it’s student names on a whiteboard, a password on a sticky note or something else, having this information out increases the risk it may wind up compromised.

Guard hard copies. Printouts, notebooks and other hard copy materials containing work information can be easily misplaced. When disposing of these materials, follow best practices for preventing data thieves from using them.

Learn more here

Our adult literacy learners can reinforce the skills that they are learning by establishing routine reading with their young children. 

Some tips for  reading with young  children that you can share with your adult learner:

1. Start early.  Reading to babies is a part of healthy brain development. Infants can be assisted with language development from hearing nursery rhymes and songs, and simply talking with your baby.

2. Use cloth books and board books for babies.  Infants love to touch and mouth objects. The sensory input helps them to learn about their world.

3. Make reading a part of your daily routine.

4. Take turns with your toddler. Allow them to turn pages and fill in some of the words.

5. Ask your child questions. You can make your reading interactive by asking questions, such as”What do you think will happen next?” 

6. Reread your child’s favorite books. Children learn from repetition. Typically by age 3, a preschooler is able to complete some of the sentences in their favorite books

7. Point out similar words and look for certain letters. When a child is four years they can beginning identifying letters and certain words.

8. Count objects on the page.  his is an excellent opportunity to reinforce early math skills.

9. Have your preschooler tell you the story. By age five, children can sit for longer times.They are also capable of creating their own stories and retelling the story.

10. Read with passion and have fun with story time!

11. Set an example. Let your child see you read.

12. Just keep reading. Read to your child often and early. You will make lasting memories with your child.

The adult learner who can read with their young child is setting up a Win/Win situation for parent/caregiver and child.

Source: 12 Tips to Boost Early Literacy

An exclusive interview with our newest math teaching tool: FRACTION TILES

Amy: “Mr Fraction Tiles, can I call you Mr.T for short? We are so happy to have you in our office. Can you tell our volunteers a little bit about yourself?

Mr T: Of course! I guess you could say that I have many layers. I mean, there’s one part of me that’s obvious, uncomplicated, and whole. But then, if you look a bit deeper, you’ll see that I divide myself among other interests and identities. It’s just a reality of modern life. I think we can all relate to that.

Amy: I agree. How do you think you can help our students at Project Read?

Mr T: Thanks for asking! I think fractions have been frustrating and confusing for many of our students in the past, and I’m here to give them a concrete way to practice adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions in a way that they can see and feel. 

Amy: Can you give us an example of that?

Mr T: Sure! It can start with something as simple as comparing ½ and 1/12. 12 is larger than 2, but 1/12 is much smaller than ½. My tiles show that a large number in the denominator means that the fraction’s value is pretty small. Let me show you a video of some other things I can do.

Amy: You must be so proud of your work.

Mr T: Well our volunteers and students are the real heroes. Sometimes teachers will just lay out my fraction tiles and let the students talk about what they notice. I’ve seen some students make some pretty cool discoveries that way.

Amy: Amen to that! Volunteers and tutors, please come to the Project Read office to see how Fraction Tiles can help you and your student build a stronger math literacy foundation.

Perhaps your student has a grammar question that you are unsure how to answer – there are various resources at your disposal to bolster your own knowledge as well as your student’s. Videos can be a helpful way to supplement your student’s learning. They are beneficial for visual and aural learners and can be accessed virtually anywhere. JenniferESL is a YouTube channel aimed towards helping ESL students, however she also reviews different aspects of grammar that can be helpful for native speakers to review. Rachel’s English is a similar channel that provides many videos related to phonics, vocabulary, and English conversation.

Even channels not necessarily related to English may be valuable to your student – videos can be helpful for introducing students to new topics, enriching a text, and deepening learning. Additionally, using closed captioning can help reinforce pronunciation and help students practice reading along. Think about how you can incorporate videos in your lessons with your student!

 Read the article here

Tutors for Project Read are encouraged to have fun while tutoring their students. After all, as the Project Read Training Manual states, “If you as a tutor aren’t having fun, it is likely your student isn’t either”! We want both our tutors and our students to look forward to and enjoy their time during tutoring sessions so that they will have the desire to come back again. Laughing Matters by Peter Medgyes is a resource book with over 100 ideas on how to incorporate humor, fun and laughter into a language classroom despite language and cultural differences.

Medgyes wrote the book with the firm belief that humor can help students practice language in genuine contexts, develop creative thinking, and release tension. It can also be a “refreshing change from routine language-learning procedures”. Our goal to increase literacy can be enhanced by having fun together as tutors and students. Having fun and using humor can increase our understanding and trust in each other and decrease stress in potentially stressful or frustrating experiences. If you have the chance, check out this book for creative ideas on how to inject fun and humor into your tutoring sessions!

Print is spoken language written down, so listening comprehension is important for reading comprehension.

Tutors should stretch listening comprehension as decoding skills grow.

Two powerful strategies to strengthen listening comprehension are reading out loud to students and having meaningful, intentional conversations about what you’ve read.

Here are some instructional routines for language development from Jan Burkins and Kari Yates’ book Shifting the Balance 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy

This month’s tip is an activity that can be adapted for any level of student, but it works especially well for beginning students and students who find writing challenging. It’s called the Language Experience Approach and it involves using the learner’s own words to create passages to help teach reading and writing. This activity is especially effective because it encourages learners to use all four language acquisition and communication skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Here’s how it works!

Ask the leaner to tell a story about an experience.Print exactly what the learner says. Use correct spelling and punctuation, but you don’t need to change any words. You can leave a blank line in between printed lines in case you need to make changes or edit it later.Have your student suggest a title for the story.Read the story back to the learner, and ask for any corrections or changes.Ask learner to read each sentence after you.Ask learner to read entire story.

That’s it! It’s a simple and enjoyable activity. You can save the pieces for review later. You can also use these stories to teach other skills by having students circle certain letters or parts of speech, make flash cards out of words they want to practice, or anything else you might be working on. Students can also reread their stories for fluency.

Enjoy trying this exercise with your students and let us know if you find new ways to use it!

The Language Experience Approach (LEA) is a teaching method that can be very effective for adult learners. It is based on the principle that learners' language skills improve when they engage in meaningful and relevant experiences. Here's how tutors can use the Language Experience Approach to teach adult learners:

1. Starting with a Shared Experience: Tutors begin by engaging learners in a shared experience, such as a field trip, a group activity, or a discussion on a specific topic. This experience serves as the foundation for language learning.

2. Recording the Experience: During or after the shared experience, tutors help learners document their thoughts, feelings, and observations. This can be done through writing, drawing, or recording audio or video. The goal is to capture the learners' authentic language use.

3. Generating Text: Tutors work with learners to transform their recorded experiences into written or spoken texts. This can involve transcribing their recordings, organizing their thoughts, or dictating to the tutor. The learners' own language becomes the basis for the text.

4. Reading and Listening: Tutors guide learners through reading and listening activities using the generated texts. This helps learners develop their reading and listening skills, as well as their comprehension of the language they've produced.

5. Vocabulary and Grammar Instruction: Tutors identify vocabulary and grammar structures that may need clarification or reinforcement based on the generated texts. They provide explicit instruction and practice activities to help learners understand and use these language elements effectively.

6. Writing and Speaking Practice: Tutors encourage learners to use the generated texts as models for their own writing and speaking practice. Learners can expand on the original text, write reflections, or engage in discussions based on the shared experience. This helps learners develop their writing and speaking skills in a meaningful and relevant context.

7. Reflection and Evaluation: Tutors facilitate reflection and evaluation sessions where learners can discuss their language use, identify areas for improvement, and set goals for future learning. This promotes metacognitive awareness and empowers learners to take ownership of their language development.

The Language Experience Approach is particularly effective for adult learners as it allows them to connect their language learning to real-life experiences and interests. It promotes learner engagement, motivation, and a sense of ownership over their learning process. By using the learners' own language as the basis for instruction, tutors can create a more personalized and meaningful learning experience for adult learners.

Several weeks ago my class was trying to discover why we need to have a common denominator when adding or subtracting fractions. I gave them fraction tiles and different practice problems and encouraged them to explain why some were easy and some were difficult. During this process, the students made a great discovery: the denominator’s job is to tell us the size of the piece we are working with, and the numerator tells us how many of those pieces we have. If your student struggles to understand fractions, I encourage you to go back to this basic anatomy of a fraction and then to build fractions using the fraction tiles we have available to borrow in the Project Read office. 

An aspect of working with adult students that differ from working with younger students is that adult students have a larger pool of experiences they can draw from to make connections with their learning. In this vein, a narrative teaching strategy is one that aims to link “lived experience and curricular content”. Storytelling is a type of narrative teaching that helps adult learners make the meaningful connection between their personal experiences and what they are learning. When encouraging students to tell their stories, it is important that they feel secure and comfortable with you and that listeners will be receptive to what they have to say.

Storytelling can help students see content in a framework that not only relates to them personally, but that relates to larger-scale groupings like family and society. Storytelling can also be a helpful tool in practicing writing skills, and analyzing stories can help students strengthen reading skills like identifying the sequence of events, the main idea or conflict, and other comprehension questions. How might you be able to incorporate narrative learning in your tutoring sessions?

Source: Page 5

Phonemes are the sounds that make up a language. There are 44 phonemes in American English. In writing, the 26 letters of the alphabet are combined in certain ways in order to represent the different phonemes. For example, a single vowel sound can be written in many different ways, like in bee, meat, and grief. These letter combinations are also known as graphemes. Research shows that “adult non-readers have virtually no awareness of phonemes, and adult beginning readers have difficulty manipulating phonemes”. By helping your student increase their phonemic awareness, they will be able to see improvements in their reading.

The following activities can be used to help assess a student’s phonemic awareness:

– Phoneme isolation: identifying single sounds in words “What is the first sound in flower?” (/f/)

– Phoneme blending: identifying the word that sounds in a sequence make “What word is /b/ /u/ /k/?” (book)

– Phoneme segmentation: breaking up a word into its sounds “What sounds make up the word mother?” (/m/ /o/ /th/ /er/)

– Phoneme deletion: identifying what word is made when deleting a sound from another word “What is flute without the /t/?” (flu)

Visit the source here

Simply put, phonological awareness is an umbrella term that includes all levels of awareness of the sound structure of words, syllables, and onset and rimes.

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound or speech that corresponds to letters of an alphabetic writing system. Thus, phonemic awareness is the ability to notice those individual sounds in a spoken word and identify and manipulate them. Why is this important? Since print is speech in written form, children who have phonemic awareness learn to read more easily than children who do not. Tasks that build and assess phonemic awareness include the following:

• Identifying initial phonemes
• Blending phonemes
• Segmenting phonemes
• Deleting phonemes
• Adding phonemes
• Substituting phonemes
• Reversing phonemes

Tasks that have the most immediate impact on reading and spelling are phoneme blending and phoneme segmentation.

Want more from Reading Horizons? Ask a staff member, we can help!

Source: Reading Horizons

I love games! So do many of our students. I am passionate about collecting games that are easy to learn, require materials that are easy to find, and that improve math fluency. Games provide sneaky ways to practice, practice, practice! In our recent tutor collaboration meeting we played one of my favorite math games, “Picking Percentages”. It requires 2 players, paper & pencil, and a deck of cards. I find that it’s a quick way to become more fluent with percentages, fractions, and creative addition strategies. If you ever need a game to practice a specific math skill, please contact me and I’ll see if I already have one or if I can find one for you. Also, if you have great games that you’d like to share, please let me know!

Check out this youtube video for instructions on how to play.

In our latest tutor collaboration we discussed the importance of project-based learning to motivate adult learners and provide students with a sense of accomplishment and completion of a goal.

Since our students all have different goals, projects can be varied. Passing tests like the TOEFL, drivers license exams, the GED, and citizenship tests are all great projects to work toward.

Other projects can be created to give students a goal to work on. Here are some suggestions:

• Submit an entry to the Project Read Writing contest
• Make a digital slide show about a topic/person of interest and present it in Literacy Lab
• Create a cookbook of favorite family or community recipes
• Write and illustrate a simple children’s book relating a family story or teaching about topic of interest
• Create a writing portfolio (just a collection) of students work to see progress

Let us know if your student has a project or portfolio to show and tell! We can plan a lab time for students to display and discuss what they’ve learned.

Take time to help your student set short term (daily/weekly) reading goals. Make sure that their reading goals are attainable, measurable, and engender growth. After a week or so, reassess the difficulty of the goals with your student. If they are proving too difficult, dial them back. If you and your student feel they aren’t helping as much as you want them to, crank it up. As your student consistently fulfills their reading goals, they will naturally grow in ability, so raising the bar should always be part of the goal schedule’s future.

Accountability will help to ensure that the goals your student sets aren’t forgotten. Together, come up with a way to track the goals; calendar, checklist, phone reminders. Make sure to include something for your student to do that signifies that they’ve completed a goal; put a check on the list, cross out a calendar day, put a star next to it, record number of pages read or time spent. You can increase accountability by consistently following up with your student and encouraging them to stay on track, whether they have been successful or not. If helpful, you can come up with a small reward your student can give themselves if they are consistent in reaching their goals for a week or so.

If your student is preparing to take the GED, citizenship exam, or another type of test, they might need help developing beneficial study habits that they can implement outside of your sessions together. Along with study tips that may have helped you personally, here are some other study habits to remember that might help your student.

– Don’t cram – the brain can only remember so much information at once. When preparing for an exam, it is better to break up your studying into chunks rather than try to study everything all at once. Shorter, more frequent study sessions are better than longer, infrequent study sessions.

– Reward yourself – before you begin studying, set mini-goals for yourself and plan for a reward when you reach those goals. Perhaps if you read for 20 minutes you can reward yourself with a snack break, or by watching a short YouTube video. This helps the studying feel less monotonous and keeps motivation up.

– Eliminate distractions – it can be hard to focus when your phone is buzzing or when people are doing something nearby. If possible, find a place to study where you can focus for a while. Some people like it to be quiet, while others prefer some background noise. If you find your phone to be distracting, try turning notifications off, putting it on silent, or leaving it in another room.

– Plan your study – some students prefer to study easier topics before they move on to the harder ones. Others prefer to tackle the harder topics first. Try studying both ways and see which works best for you. If you have a plan for what you will do during your study time, you will be more likely to follow it, and it will be easier to attain the goals you have set for yourself.

Support Reading Fluency with Your Student

Fluency isn’t about reading fast—it’s about reading smoothly, accurately, and with meaning. Many adult learners, including both English learners and native speakers, benefit from focused fluency practice. The activities below are easy to use in one-on-one tutoring sessions and work well with short texts, workplace materials, learner-chosen articles, or simple stories.

Here are some fluency strategies:

• Model Fluent Reading: Begin by reading a short passage aloud. Let your learner hear how phrasing, pacing, and expression work together to convey meaning.
• Repeated Reading: Have your learner read the same short text 2–4 times. Repetition builds confidence, accuracy, and smoothness without pressure.
• High-Interest Texts: Use topics that matter to the learner—hobbies, workplace tasks, parenting, health, or local news. Engagement fuels fluency.
• Echo Reading: You read a line; the learner reads it back. Great for modeling phrasing and pronunciation.
• Paired Reading: Read aloud together at the same pace. Pause occasionally to let the learner continue independently.
• “Find the Pause”: Let learners mark natural pauses with slashes ( / ) in a short passage, then read it aloud together.
• Sight-Word Warm-Ups: Spend 2–3 minutes reviewing high-frequency words to support smoother reading.
• Audio + Text Pairing: Learners listen to a short audio clip while following along in the text—reinforces pacing and vocabulary.
• Choral Reading: Read poems, dialogues, or short scripts together with expression. Builds confidence and rhythm.
• Timed, Low-Pressure Re-Reads: Use a one-minute timer for repeated readings. Focus on smoothness and confidence—not speed.
• Learner-Generated Text: Write down a story, recipe, or workplace description from the learner. Familiar content is motivating and highly readable.
• Record and Reflect: Record the learner reading (with permission) and listen together. Celebrate strengths and milestones. 

Fluency grows through supported practice, meaningful repetition, and engagement with texts that matter. With these simple strategies, tutors can help adult learners build not only reading skills but also confidence and enjoyment.

When teaching it is incredibly important to listen to your student.  Each person learns and develops at a different pace and in different ways.  By listening to your student you can  better determine how to meet their individual needs. This also helps to make your student feel that you care about them as well, making them more likely to heed your advice and tips.  For ideas on how to improve your listening skills see this site.

  When giving pointers to a student also remember to make sure they understand. Ask them questions to ensure that you are being clear and are able to effectively communicate your ideas with them.  If they do not seem to understand, do not just repeat yourself.  Try to tackle the issue from another angle, one that may provide your student with a deeper insight and a better understanding of what you are trying to say.

Make sure that you ask clear, concise questions when teaching to help students draw their own conclusions and arrive at understanding with minimal assistance (when applicable).  This cements their understanding and greatly enhances their learning experience.  Never assume your student knows something.  Make sure they understand what you are doing and the context of what you are reading.  If you feel you could improve your question asking skills go to this site for more information.

Tutor Tip: The Power of the 5-Second Wait

One of the simplest and most effective ways to support adult learners is also one of the hardest for tutors to do: pause. When a learner is stuck on a word, unsure how to answer a question, or slow to respond, our instinct is to jump in and rescue them. But giving just a few extra seconds can make an enormous difference in their confidence, independence, and long-term learning.

What Is the 5-Second Wait?

After asking a question or pointing to a word, give the learner a full five seconds of quiet thinking time before stepping in with help or hints. This intentional pause is long enough to activate problem-solving, but short enough to avoid frustration.

Most tutors are surprised by how long five seconds actually feels, but that’s part of the magic.

Why It Works for Adult Learners

1. Reduces pressure and anxiety. Many adult learners carry school-related stress or previous negative experiences with reading and writing. Silence can feel supportive, not demanding. It gives them space to think without feeling rushed or judged.

2. Encourages independence. When learners have time to work things out, even partially, they strengthen the cognitive pathways needed for reading and comprehension. A quick hint steals the chance for productive struggle.

3. Improves accuracy and memory. Research on “wait time” shows that learners give longer, more accurate answers when given a pause. Their brains have time to retrieve information, decode, or try a strategy they’ve practiced.

4. Builds confidence session by session. Solving a problem independently even once boosts motivation. Adults notice their own progress when they’re allowed room to try.

What It Looks Like in a Tutoring Session

You ask your learner to read a sentence. They stop at a word.

Instead of jumping in with “Sound it out" or "remember the short vowel sound?”, you simply wait.

Count silently to five.

Often, the learner will try the first sound, break the word into parts, reread the sentence for context, or even self-correct.

If they are still stuck after five seconds, then offer a prompt, not the answer:

Prompts to try:

• “Look at the first letter. What sound does it make?”
• “Try saying each part slowly.”
• “What word would make sense here?”
• “Let’s tap it out together.”

This keeps them engaged in the thinking process without taking over.

How to Build This Habit

Practice counting in your head so the pause becomes comfortable. Tell your learner what you're doing: “I’ll give you time to think—take your time.” This turns silence into a supportive strategy instead of awkwardness. Celebrate the moments they get it on their own. Even a small success reinforces that the wait time is working.

Bottom Line

The 5-Second Wait may feel small, but it is a powerful tool in literacy tutoring. By resisting the urge to fill the silence, you give adult learners the space they need to think, try, and grow. Sometimes the quietest moments lead to the biggest breakthroughs.

Critical Thinking
Syntax
Text Structure
Writing Craft
Transcription

The Strands That Are Woven Into Skilled Writing

Instead of focusing on “fixing” weaknesses, deficiencies, and limitations or having low expectations for certain groups of students based on perceived deficits, use a strengths-based approach to teaching.

When working with adult learners in literacy, it's helpful to adopt a strengths-based approach rather than a deficit-based one. Here’s why and how:

Recognize and Celebrate Existing Strengths: Every learner possesses unique strengths, whether it's creativity, resilience, problem-solving skills, or personal experiences. Start by identifying and celebrating these strengths. It not only boosts confidence but also establishes a positive learning environment.

Focus on Assets, Not Deficits: Instead of dwelling on what learners lack, emphasize what they bring to the table. Encourage them to use their existing skills and knowledge to facilitate learning. This shift in focus fosters a sense of empowerment and motivates adult learners to actively engage in the learning process.

Personalize Learning Goals: Work collaboratively with learners to set personalized learning goals based on their strengths and interests. Tailor teaching strategies and materials to align with these goals, ensuring relevance and engagement.

Use Strengths to Address Challenges: When learners encounter challenges, encourage them to draw upon their strengths to overcome obstacles. For instance, if a learner excels in visual learning, incorporate more visual aids and activities into the lessons to enhance understanding.

Provide Constructive Feedback: Offer feedback that acknowledges achievements and progress, while also providing constructive guidance for improvement. Highlighting successes reinforces adult learners' confidence and encourages continued effort.

Create a Supportive Learning Community: Foster a supportive and inclusive learning environment where learners feel valued and respected. Encourage peer collaboration and mutual support, allowing learners to learn from each other's strengths and experiences.

By adopting a strengths-based approach, adult literacy teachers can empower learners to recognize their potential, build confidence, and achieve meaningful learning outcomes.

This month’s tip is taken from an article written by Akimi Gibson from the Reading Rockets website. It’s about using your student’s prior knowledge and context clues in order to help promote comprehension.

Activating prior knowledge

Tina, the tutor, invites her student, Allison, to read the title of the book, M&M and the Bad News Babies, and then preview the book.

• Tina: What does the title tell you about the story?
• Allison: It’s about babies who get into trouble.
• Tina: Let’s take a look at the first chapter and see what we can find out.
• Allison: Look, they have a fish tank. I have fish, too. My fish live in a fish bowl, not a big tank. (Allison points to the picture of the tank on the page.)
• Tina continues to preview the first chapter with Allison. They notice pictures of a mother dropping off two young children and a lively discussion about babysitting ensues. She then explicitly explains the strategy:
• Tina: Allison, you are doing exactly what good readers do before they read. Good readers preview the book and think about what they already know about the topic. As we continue to read, keep in mind what you know about babysitting and doing chores. This may help you understand the story.

Why It’s Important

Good readers make use of their prior knowledge and experiences to help them understand what they are reading. When a student activates her prior knowledge, the resulting connection provides a framework for any new information she will learn while reading (Graves, Juel, & Graves, 1998). This also helps ensure that the reader will remember the text after reading.

How to Support Your Tutee

• Before your student reads, preview the text and help her make a connection between what she already knows and the new text. Page through the book and ask students what they already know about the topic, broad concept, author, or genre. For example, Tina learns that Allison has a fish tank, like the characters in the story.
• Draw the student’s attention to key vocabulary or phrases. Tina draws Allison’s attention to topic words such as fish tank, babysitting, and twins.
• Talk about print and text features and the way the text is organized. For example, Tina points out that the text is divided into four chapters.
• Another strategy for activating prior knowledge: K-W-L Chart. In addition to previewing the book with Allison, Tina decides to use a K-W-L chart(an example follows) as a way to explain the strategy further. K-W-L charts are especially helpful with nonfiction or expository text.Before reading, draw a K-W-L chart like the one below on a sheet of paper.What I KnowIn the K column, list what the child already knows about the topic. If necessary, model a response to get the conversation started. What I Want To Know Then point to the W column and ask the student what he would like to learn by reading the text. Write responses in the form of questions. Use the questions to help set a purpose for reading. What I Learned While reading, turn the student’s attention to the W column. As he discovers the answers to his questions, record them and any new learnings in the L column. After reading, help your student summarize the text using all three columns.

Have your student teach you their first language! We have a tutoring pair where the student is spending a little time each session teaching her tutor Spanish. It is a great way to build confidence in non-native speakers, and reinforces grammar and conversation skills. Plus, tutors can learn too! This has been really fun and productive for Delmy and Linda. Perhaps you could give it a try.

This is an effective strategy because it gives students authentic experience using their new language skills. Generating purposes and creating authentic assignments is vital for adult learners. We offer our monthly writing prompts so tutors can provide an authentic writing assuagement that can be shared in lab and with other students. December’s writing prompt is to create a newsletter for your family or organization.

Here are some ideas to work on during your tutoring sessions:

Navigate college websites together, including admissions policies and resources available to ESL and first-generation students.

Read and discuss college-level materials to build confidence and prepare for higher education.

Create and update resumes and LinkedIn profiles—once their LinkedIn profile is up to date, students can “auto apply” to several entry level jobs online and receive updates about jobs they qualify for.

Many students are studying to prepare for the TOEFL exam in order to be admitted to college. We have prep guides in our office that explain the test and give examples of test questions.

Let us know if you have any questions or need help preparing your student for their post-secondary education goals!