Q&A for How to Tutor Kids

Talk to the student to figure out what they're struggling with. Then, break down the subject matter they need help with into small steps.

You could do either, depending on which the student is more comfortable with.

Do one free lesson. If your friend's mom likes what you're doing, she may offer to pay you a little, especially if you politely make your money-earning goals known and offer a very reasonable price for future sessions.

Be friendly and approach the experience slowly. It will take time to get the child to open up to you. After she does, the more you engage with her, the more she'll want to engage back with you.

Make a website or advertise through parents and friends. Social media is a big way to advertise, because most of it is free.

Of course you can! It's better that way as you will be able to communicate better and the child will be more comfortable with another child. Just make sure you know what you're doing and I'm sure you'll do just fine.

There could be many reasons for that. Perhaps you have not advertised properly. Do you have a reputation of not being the most academically focused or being untrustworthy? If so, that could explain it. Also, if you are a younger tutor, (for example being 8 and wanting to tutor a 7 year old), that may not always work.

Yes! You teach them all the time. Literacy training sounds complicated, but it needn't be. I put index cards, each with one lower-case letter on it, in ABC order, on a wall. After singing the ABC song, touching each letter, my two-year-old knew most letters by shape and name. After about a week of this game, a few minutes a day, whenever he wanted to play, I would name a letter and ask him to find it. Soon I had him combining letters (Like O-N to make "ON"). From there, we went to sight words on index cards, which we arranged into funny sentences. By the time he was 30 months old, he was reading all sorts of words, independently. You play, they learn!

People can be tutored at any age. If you're asking if a younger student can tutor an older one, yes, as long as the young tutor is sufficiently knowledgeable on the subject and understands every part of the curriculum that needs to be covered.

You can ask them which they prefer, but either should be acceptable.

That depends on their ages and why they aren't taking it seriously. If they are bored, make lessons more interesting. If they don't see a connection between what they are studying and their lives, try to make that connection.

Offer a reward when they accomplish something. This reward could vary from a sticker to a piece of candy. Find out what motivates them.

Go to a local school and ask them if they could use a tutor. If you are in secondary school, you could ask your old school.

How much you charge is based on how experienced you are. When I started I charged $7 an hour.

You could go to your old elementary school and ask some of your past teachers who they think needs help. They could put you in touch with these students' parents.

Start with $20-$40 per hour, depending on the length of the lesson and the grade of the student you are tutoring.

This is perfectly legal as long as your parents and the parents of the person you are tutoring have given their full permission. You don't have to have any sort of license to be a tutor, adult tutors who are teaching children often have qualifications in a certain subject such as maths or English, but as you're only a child you won't have those.

You can tutor children your own age or younger if you know the subject you're tutoring in really well and are good at teaching it to others.

Make sure they know addition first. It's an easier concept. Then explain to them that subtraction is the same thing, but backwards. Use props to show them, like "I have four apples, if you take away two, how many apples do I have?"

My math teacher showed my class the correlation between having good grades in school and a high-paying job in the future. This will motivate the child to do better in school and seek tutoring to get higher grades.

First you need to know the subjects with which he may be having difficulty. Ask him, his teachers, or your parents/guardians. Then you can begin to figure out how to build on what he already knows in order to help him learn new concepts. Try starting with whatever he finds the most interesting and expand from there.

It depends on the child, but I would say no more than an hour and a half, since an 8-year-old probably doesn't have the longest attention span.

You can tutor a few students at the same time if they're all in the same class or all learning the same topic, just make sure you're still able to give them individual help and attention, because that is your job.

Make it fun for them. Ask them questions and maybe put in a game or two into each lesson.

I would leave it alone, that may be her way of coping with something in her life, or practicing the new language. You can try to draw her attention back to the lesson at times, or you could try to figure out why she is doing it, and help her with that. If she is younger, this may pass, and it's not that big of an issue.

Start with the school homework and curriculum requirements. Explain each and every question and explain with some examples, as giving examples helps the student to understand better. Then try giving a few questions about the lesson, to check how much the student understood. Also ask them where they are experiencing the most difficulties and focus on those areas in particular.

What would you charge for one hour of your time? Multiply this by how long will it take to prep for those 4 kids, add on the one hour you teach and that’s probably a fair price.

Check in with your parents before you decide to start tutoring kids. You may want to have your parents meet your student's parents before you start your tutoring sessions to double check that everyone is comfortable.

Make sure that your sister knows that you just want to help her. Keep your temper in check when tutoring her, even if she argues with you. Take breaks every so often so that neither of you feel overwhelmed, and if it doesn't work out, ask your parents to hire someone else.

Offer to tutor your neighbor's kids first, and then gradually branch out. Your parents may know people who want help as well. Start with kids you know.