What makes a good tutor?

for myself, but never really have a class but only interview. The tutors who came to me were two type, lack of confident and too much confident that I can say it's boasting. I want somehing moderate, so I found out that learning on my own was the best way, then if there's something I couldn't understand I will research for it with any means and many gathered information so that I can truely understand. People believe in the books but people wrote down the books. Nobody is perfect, even teacher, sometimes, makes mistakes.

A good awareness of the chosen subject...a friendly attitude to the one being taught and above a commitment to the task involved.......all these would make an ideal tutor.

I never hired a tutor for my kids, although when they were of school age I was a tutor. Mostly I tutored for free at the local GED center, but here and there I did tutor kids. The kids I did tutor were getting mostly D's and F's, and they eventually became B students. The difference? I think a tutor has to have patience, because as all of us mom's know, kids ask a lot of questions. One thing I always told them was 'the only stupid question is the one not asked.' So, they always felt free to ask questions and not feel like they were, well...stupid. Another thing I believe is that a good tutor should recognise that each person, whether child OR adult, has a different way of learning. IE: some need to read and get it, some need to do more hands on besides the reading and drills. One kid I had was failing miserably, he was in grade school. His parents owned a horse farm. I asked him what his dream job would be if he could be anything he wanted. Well, he wanted to own a horse farm too. So, once I knew where his interests lay, math lessons revolved around 'the farm.' You know, if you have 3 horses and they eat a bale a day, how many do we have to put up for ___days of winter? Haha, once this kid grasped the concept on something that was tangible to him, then he was definitely interested in learning his math and eventually even got on the honor roll. So, I think it's important to relate to each kid on their interests. For his reading, we read mostly horse and farm related books, again, where his own interests lay. I think a good tutor has to tailor their lessons to the child, because if he/she's interested and it means something to them personally, their interest level goes way up! Call me crazy, but I didn't charge. The families I helped with tutoring chores needed their children tutored, so I kind of did it barter, which meant maple syrup, bushels of apples, and stuff like that. (Can you tell I live way out in the country? lol) Oh, and dotmiko, post #1, is right when they wrote the tutor should be somebody social. If they don't have a friendly attitude towards the kid, then they don't develop that necessary rapport.

i tutored five girls in a group in my last year of school as well as one individual student. i didnt get paid as they were my friends and i found teaching an amazing way of learning. they did take me out to dinner though. i think the pay depends on what you put in. think of a base rate that you wouldnt work under and offer to work for a little over that. see what your employer says. also discuss about getting a raise/bonus or something when your students grades improve. definately knowing what you are talking about is important. so only teach subjects you know really well - that you are able to discuss freely off the top of your head. other qualities a tutor should have are organisation, communication skills and the ability to make a tutoring session enjoyable. plan your sessions, think about what you will need and how you can make the subject interesting. try different strategies and see what your student responds to best. i used things like short summarising activities, crosswords of key terms, diagrams and mindmapping. talk to your student about what they think their strong and weak areas are, what they want to achieve through tutoring and what their long term goal is in relation to their studies. this will give you a starting point and target destination.