Keenly Patient Elementary/Middle Grade Math, Biology, and ESL Tutor

Julia P.

ADHD

As a classroom teacher I usually had Special Education students in my classes, and was able to adapt materials to meet their needs by chunking information, providing detailed syllabus guidance, and study guides through each separate topic, as well as individual peer support and teacher interventions for scaffolding. As a tutor, I have found that discovering preferred interests, and relating any needed studying to that interest (space exploration, MineCraft, History as well as many others) helps distracted students come back to focus on what is needed. Doing the assignment along with the student, relating the content to "real world" uses, helps keep the interest going to completel the task. And using sound (bells and other chimings) to acknowledge student effort has been very effective at helping students. Verbal encouragement, and stating met objectives along with what we will work on next time are extremely effective supports for students.

Astronomy

As a classroom teacher I became proficient in the jargon of Astronomy and encouraged my students to do the same. New progress (the Webb telescope images) plus an increasing appreciation for the existing knowledge humanity has (the Dogon people of Mali knew Sirius is a binary star before European astronomers knew, and before telescopes). I stay informed on cutting edge information by reading continually. By the way, tonights night sky will show six planets, and looking down at your feet you will see the 7th, Earth.

Biology

I qualified for National Board certification as a Biology teacher when I was in the classroom. The knowledge and comprehension standards for National Board are high, as are its teaching ability assessment. It is not enough to just know information, as being able to help students understand is important. I am both interested in biological science and grateful for opportunities to help students gain interest and appreciation in it as well. Biology promotes critical thinking skills and improves everyone’s ability to self-care by providing information. One example is why do humans need vitamin D for good health? It is because vitamin D helps humans absorb calcium from our diet, promoting bone and nerve health. And as long as we get some exposure of our skin to sunshine we can make it in our skin ourselves from cholesterol. Yes cholesterol (some) is good and we can use it. I think Biology is one of the most important classes students take in a general education pathway. It is academic but also personally useful as a foundation for studying nutrition and health.

Botany

As a former farm resident, I became intensely interested in plant life, and from an early age developed a desire to both know and be able to use plants with some skill. Unfortunately Botany jobs pay poorly. I knew a degree in Botany would be somewhat useless, so my choice of Environmental Science allowed me to study plants and have a career that would support me (teaching). As an adult, nutrition and preserving my environment as much as possible became important to me, and plant life was the focus for that. I have had extensive course work and real-world experience with plants, as it is my natural interest. I continue to learn about plants through discoveries an advancements.

Ecology

I graduated from University of Maryland with one of, if not THE first Environmental Science degree offered in the Nation. I have continued to study and improve my content knowledge over the years by teaching and enrolling in academic graduate school classes for myself. Environmental Science is now far more mainstream than it has been in the past and incorporates many branches of Science. Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Math, Anthropology, and many more content areas meet to compose this subject. One of my students studied the Ecology of Forest Fires and the Aftermath. I have learned a great deal both in supporting students as they study in new branches of Environmental Science, and in self study due to my interest!

Elementary Math

I taught Math in 6th grade classrooms before retirement, and have tutored all levels of elementary Math for the past 5 years as a remote tutor. There are many helpful ways to support students learning Math through activities like skip-counting (supporting multiplication), Math mazes (ordering), and using counters (rehearsing to gain famiiarity). Identifying patters is helpful in adding and early multiplication as well. I have found many schools seem to shy away from encouraging students to memorize their addition and times tables. But the same students who have not memorized that 7 X 8 = 56 often have nearly 100 songs, words and lyrics, memorized for fun. I support students and encourage them in using study tools, practicing daily, and generally, few students completely fail at memorizing Math facts. The side benefit is the empowerment the students feel when they have gained the skills needed. Learning mulitplication tables might not be much fun at times, but knowing them is a hoot.

Elementary Science

I have been tutoring since 2020, through VIPKid and then Varsity Tutors. My primary content areas have been Math, Science, and Language Arts! I am currently certified in English education, and was certified in Science and Special Ed before retiring. I have worked with students from age 3 years through adult (55 years old). Not all students are Special Ed but the methods that support Special students seem to work well for most students. I have had many elementary and middle grades students over the years who did very well and were able to launch into academics on their own successfully. And I really love tutoring. I create individual session plans for each child, based on what is needed. Planning (on my part) is critical to the success of each session.

English

In middle school the focus for my classes was using Language Arts to gain insight and express concepts. Reading and writing within content areas strengthens both subjects. My students were tasked each year with creating an essay with perfect grammar, spelling, sentence structure and essay format. This included research with a bibliography, references within the document, a graphic organizer for the essay information and structure, and a final copy, produced by computer printout. As a tutor, i help students to know that English is not an easy language to learn and when we write, having proficiency in formal language is an important asset which is immediately recognizable in its absence. Practice makes better. My tutoring students practice using content they prefer as much as is possible. I can’t always structure a lesson around space exploration (or any particular content) if that is a preferred subject. But if I can, I do. Language Arts skills are important in every academic content so learning verb tense, plural and singular, and sentence structure and all the rest of grammar is of lifelong importance. I love to read. I enjoy many genres and I endeavor to pass that appreciation on to my tutoring students. There’s nothing quite so nice as a good book.

GED

As a remote tutor I have helped students with middle and high school Math content to support their success on tests and quizzes through understanding the content. Arithmetic, pre-Algebra and Algebra problems can be approached using a protocol, a pattern of finding Math solutions. We practice those until they become usefully familiar! In Algebra for an example, the first goal is get the unknown (variable) by itself on one side of the equation. Always. Using tools of add to both sides, multiply both sides, divide and subtract can be done in any manner as long as the same thing is done to both sides. Math problems are puzzles that can be fun to solve when we know the rules well.

Prealgebra

As a classroom Science teacher, I often needed for the students to be able to use a wide variety of Math tools. Statistics, graphing, probability, and other Math content was important for understanding our Science activities. I became proficient in teaching middle grades Math by doing so. My students were not all from the same feeder schools and many had little experience with pre-Algebra. I learned how to help students understand new Math activities by letting them use their own experimental results for the problem data. As a tutor I have good results helping students understand their Math by using application examples from Science. Many students are proficient at understanding abstract problems. Some are not and need concrete concepts to get great comprehension. I have been tutoring pre-Algebra for several years now with excellent results.

Reading

I am a lover of reading myself, and I have trained in special education to be able to help students gain strong reading skills. It is a very important ability to gain. Reading comprehension involves sight word mastery, sentence structure understanding, verb and noun agreement, and a great deal of vocabulary study. Because this process can be tedious, I try to find what subjects my students prefer to learn about and we learn how to read in that content area. It has proven many times to be effective for my Reading students.

Regents

I have had the privilege of helping many students review to prepare for Regents tests in Living Environments (Biology), and Earth Science with excellent results. While the content does not change a great deal from year to year, the emphasis of the question on that content does not stay the same. Additionally, new extensions (such as using CRISPr within genetics questions) makes the need to stay current most important. The tests also mandate thorough preparation in classic knowledge about the tested material.

Study Skills

Within Science and Math coursework there was and always is the need to know Reading Comprehension, Writing, and to develop skill to find and internalize Language Arts, Science and Math jargon, as large numbers of terms and meanings can generate confusion. So for all the subjects I have learned personally and then taught, I help students know it is important to find spelling and understand word meanings, as critical to successful study. We focus on never assuming we know a word without confirming by researching the term. It takes discipline to always verify self-understanding of language and, working alongside and with a child, I can support their developing habit of looking things up, not assuming we know. I also assure the students, truthfully, that I often look up spelling and/or meaning of words. There is no need for feeling overwhelmed if we look terms up before we use them. It is commendable, in fact. After years of teaching and taking classes I have a large working vocabulary in the academic subjects. However I still frequently look up meanings and spelling. It is a strong and very powerful habit to develop.

Writing

As a young student myself I qualified to skip Reading in middle school and English Composition in college because my skills, practiced on my own, were already strong. I loved and excelled at Language Arts from the start. When in elementary grades we learn Reading and writing (Composition) and after elementary we use those skills to learn about other content and show what we know. We are unique biologically in our creation of symbols representing ideas that we can leave for others of our kind. Students reading Homer’s “Iliad” for example may not realize it is a poem written 3000 years ago. And the text we write today may well be read by students thousands of years into the future. Language can be subtle and “say” things not written by asking for the readers’ inferences. Catching and completing such “requests” brings the reader intimately into the text, creating involvement. Anyone who has ever gotten themselves deep into a work of literature knows what it is like to read until 3AM (on a work night) because the book and its ideas simply cannot be put down. That kind of involvement requires skill. The person experiencing that connection to the author’s ideas has ownership of Reading Comprehension. Frequent use of writing skills (composition) is a hands-on way to build that knowledge and skill. Being able to extend ourselves into the mind of a future reader and add “Easter eggs” for them to discover and enjoy is a gift good writers can develop with practice. First we have to become proficient readers! Watching students master Language Arts comprehension and become skilled writers is a privilege I relish.