How to Become a Tutor: Essential Tutoring Resources
A successful tutor has great resources at their fingertips. First let's touch on personal development as a tutor. As a tutor, no matter the subject(s) you are tutoring, you can grow and improve. You are interested in learning as much about your craft as you can, and that's why you are here.
Emily Meyer's book,
The Practical Tutor, is an invaluable tool to tutors of all levels. This is my most highly recommended tutoring resource.
Review
"Useful on every level for both the administrators and the tutors of writing centers."--Rosalee Stilwell, Peninsula College, Forks Campus
"Not only offers excellent tutor training, but it is also a valuable synthesis of contemporary composition theory."--Charyl Brown, University of Texas at Arlington
"As a course of study for new, especially peer tutors, this text is unequaled....In its scope and thoroughness, The Practical Tutor does more than provide a course in tutoring instruction; it illustrates more vividly than any text I have seen the varied work of a writing center....This is a text well worth considering for training new tutors to teach writing."--College English
"There is much to be learned from The Practical Tutor, learned by tutors and by teachers who teach tutors. The thoughtful and thorough selections of composition theory and practice brought into play and the clarity with which they are summarized are useful to anyone interested in teaching writing. The intense and valuable experience that the authors have had with tutors and with tutoring resonates throughout the book."--The Writing Center Journal
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This book focuses on tutors of writing and composition. However, Emily's instruction lends well to tutors of other subjects as well.
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Tutoring Matters, by Jerome Rabow, has to be my second favorite. In fact it comes so close to first place that I might as well call it a tie with Emily's book, above.
Here is a taste of some of the reviews. How can you not be convinced?
Review
"This book offers a scholarly and practical perspective on tutoring both as an art and [as a] science. It is a must read for those who hope to be effective tutors, for those who intend to establish serious tutorial programs, for educators and policy-makers." --Walter R. Allen, Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, UCLA
"...The authors do more than prepare tutors to teach; through poignant vignettes and judicious advice, they prepare tutors to form relationships and, in the process, to learn more about themselves." --Sonia M. Nieto, University of Massachusetts
"This book targets and solves the many relationship problems between tutors and clients with insight and sensitivity" --Selma R. Zimmerman, New York City Board of Education
"What the novice tutor needs is reassurance. That is exactly what Tutoring Matters offers through the accounts of others and the concrete details that are so clearly presented in this book. Well done!" --Wilbur Rippy, New York's Bank Street College of Education
"The most practical, concrete, appealing, and intellectually coherent preparation material I have seen. We will use it, not only in our school tutorial program, but also in our work with juvenile detention systems and the homeless." --Mark A. Chesler, Community Service Learning Programs, University of Michigan
In a tutoring business,
you are your business. Invest in yourself and you will reap the rewards. You are worth the time, effort and cost to personal growth.
