Tutoring means a lot to me -- both professionally and personally. The satisfaction that I feel when I am able to explain something to a student, and the personal fulfillment that I experience when that student thanks me for my help -- can be just wonderful. I started doing private tutoring about 18 years ago while I was a freelance writer for a local newspaper. Eventually, I became a part-time graduate student at Drexel University. While taking classes, I worked as a tutor for Drexel's Center for Learning and Instruction and for Student Support Services. In 1998, I earned a master's degree in elementary education. (My bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania is in English.) Over the past 15 years, I have done both classroom teaching and one-on-one (and small group) tutoring for a variety of schools, programs, and organizations. These have included the School District of Philadelphia, the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Community College of Philadelphia, the Honickman Learning Center, and Drexel University. For more than five years, I have worked as a professional tutor of writing and English at Peirce College, a well-known educational institution located in Center City Philadelphia. At Peirce, I work with adult students from a variety of backgrounds whose ages also range widely -- from their late teens into their 70s. I assist these students with writing projects on many different subjects -- from management and marketing to science and intercultural communications.
I am interested in working with both children and adults, and I feel that the personal, one-on-one tutoring experience can be of long-lasting benefit to students of all ages. My approach is to find out the student's needs through discussion and through an examination of the student's work. If this involves a writing project, I do my best to help the writer to express his or her ideas in his/her own "voice." We can also talk about essay organization, grammar, and sentence structure. In dealing with reading comprehension -- whether it is for English, history, or any other subject -- I will assist the student in unlocking the meaning of words and sentences by breaking things down, doing comparisons with familiar vocabulary, and using plain, common-sense explanations.
I look forward to serving you as a WyzAnt tutor.
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