So You Want to Be a Tutor
Michelle Breitenbach is an energetic and motivating presenter who will get you on your feet. She is a certified dyslexia practitioner and early literacy specialist from Boston, Massachusetts.
After working as a special educator for seven years, she established her own company in Miami, Florida, Read to Rewire. She supports students online as a private educator and coaches teachers globally.
Michelle is passionate about teaching others how to engage students through less technology, movement, and games in the classroom and online, precisely those extra wiggly, inflexible thinkers. Michelle was teaching online for over a year when the pandemic occurred. She supported the transition to online teaching with free resources and webinars during the pandemic.
Michelle loves creating unique resources to support teachers and maintain student interest with games and bursts of movement. Her interactive webinars have focused on elevating student engagement, maintaining multi-sensory methods, minimizing tech online for successful lessons, setting up behavior systems, and weaving quick motivating activities into each part of a structured literacy lesson.
In this episode, we’ll share our top 3 tips for tutoring!
Episode Transcript
Hanna:
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the "My Literacy Space" podcast. Today I'm chatting with Michelle from Read to Rewire and we are talking all about online tutoring and tutoring in person. This has been the number one requested podcast because people are wondering about what I do for a job and I thought, why not have a conversation with somebody else who does almost the exact same that I do. So, welcome, Michelle.
Michelle:
Thank you, thank you for having me.
Hanna:
I'm pretty excited because I think that there's some interesting topics that people are interested in maybe dabbling in some tutoring of some sort, whether it is online or in person. And I thought we could each share three of our top tips for tutoring. And I'm going to go first with one of the basic ones about organization. So something that I think is really fantastic to think about is what do you want your business, whether it's online tutoring or in person, what do you want it to look like? You could make it as complex as you want it, or quite simplified in its approach. And so being organized with pre-written emails, with Google Forms to get people information as an intake, those quick short pieces of information, have as much information in writing that they can go back to rather than just all verbal where people don't often catch your message. So I think that that's something that, the organizing of your business forms, is really key. And then even the organization of helping students be organized on their end and me on my end.
Hanna:
So I give every student who's in-person a zippered tutoring bag that is pretty big, it's not a backpack but it's a big flat bag. And they all get the same exact materials that if we ever had to go online because they're not feeling well or they're away, that they have everything they need in their bag to do the session online.
Hanna:
Some of the things that I have is I have, a Duo Tang folder with the three prongs that we can keep track of decodable text, poetry, any writing that we're doing. We've got a communication book that I write to the parents, they can write back with any questions to me. And that helps me plan what I'm doing next because I see what we've been able to do and what we're moving through and that kind of helps me keep on track for each student. And then they each have a pencil and an eraser and pencil sharpener and a whiteboard marker and lots of things that are just in there as quick tools. They don't have to go find that when they get home to practice whatever I've sent home or online. So I think organization is thinking about your physical space, your online space, the materials, and then any kind of notifications that you want for parents to have as much automated as possible.
Hanna:
So that's tip number one. What's your first tip, Michelle? Go ahead and introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about yourself and then jump into your first tip.
Michelle:
Yeah, I'm Michelle from Read to Wire and I've been teaching with students online like a couple years before the pandemic and I actually feel like it takes sometimes more energy to teach a student in person than online. I try to support and coach teachers on how to teach online. But by keeping it really simple and we really focus on just using the video and the document camera and so we don't get replaced by technology and at least stay center to the student. And what I want to talk about is one of the things that you mentioned where I really liked is how to keep the bag separate because that's something that we really have to think about these days with the pandemic and germs, it prevents you from having to wash everything every time and that's a really good tip. I like that tip.
Michelle:
So my tip goes along with that as well. It's keeping it super simple. How is the student's side set up? How is your side set up? And the way I like to explain it to teachers is everything should be in reachable distance because if you're a teacher and you're searching through your work bag for something, you lost them. They're gone, they went to make a sandwich or something. So you want to know that everything is in organized state and it's in reachable ways, it's like you could have those quick teachable moments with your own materials. So I really like to think about, how would this look if I was in person and just replicate that for doing that online and keeping it really simple.
Michelle:
And if we are just using the video and the document camera, keeping it simple just means the same instructional resources that I would use in person are right next to me. Online specifically because I don't, even if I turn my back for a second to reach something in the shelf, oh where did he go, or she's under the table or she's gone to get up some water or whatever and you have to keep them captivated kind of the whole time.
Hanna:
Right.
Michelle:
So you really want to organize your space and keep it really simple. So one of my tips is, invest in a good document camera. I love the Inswan document camera and really think about before we go and we share our screen and we go to every imaginable website that can replace you by the way, that just think about how much you can do in video and what can you do with the document camera because I'm telling you there's so much we can do in video. We shared that on the Live, remember? How much you can do in video.
Michelle:
I think a lot of us think about, we were thrown into this whole pandemic situation and you had to learn to teach online at a snap of the fingers and there was an over-inundation of materials being thrown at us which was great because everyone was sharing. That's amazing. But it brought us to a place that we didn't necessarily have to go.
Hanna:
Right.
Michelle:
Because if we keep it simple and we didn't have to go necessarily to all the websites and all the slides and all that. One of the things that we have to think about is, what is our student used to in person?
Hanna:
Yeah.
Michelle:
And when we slide into online, we have to replicate that experience for them.
Hanna:
Absolutely.
Michelle:
When I became an online teacher, I was a tutor at the time and I said, "Whoa, traffic is too much. Let's get online." And I knew that the parents that are watching by the way or listening, I knew that they would be wanting to see the same kind of lesson and if I didn't deliver, if you don't deliver as a tutor the same kind of lesson, it's not going to go much further than that.
Michelle:
So I say keep it super simple. Don't overthink it. Don't think you have to go subscribe to every single website. Just rely on what you've always done. You are the expert already and you only need a video and a document camera, I promise you. And I think we talked about this in the Live as well where, if the internet goes awry, if you're using a lot of video techniques, you have your lesson on WhatsApp, you can have your lesson on FaceTime and you can have your lesson on Skype or any of the other video platforms and you don't have to miss out on our lesson. As a tutor it's super important for us to maintain our income. So we don't want our income lost just because the technology, the itchy glitchies, I call it [inaudible 00:07:49] mess up a little bit. So, keep it super simple.
Hanna:
Okay, so we've been talking a little bit about the Live on Instagram that we did a couple of days ago. So it is on my feed. So if you happen to come across the podcast and you're not following me on Instagram, it's @MyLiteracySpace and that Live is saved. And we talked about working with wiggly kids, whether you're through the camera, through the computer, online tutoring or in person. We had a lot of feedback from homeschool families as well, talking about, okay, I've got my two or three at home and how am I going to keep them engaged for these pieces of time? And again, it works the same. What I think we're seeing a lot of is that kids want that instant gratification of the app or the video game or something. And that's not real life. In real life, things happen in real time, not in nanoseconds of lights and boom-boom, kids get super overwhelmed.
Hanna:
So you're right, keeping it simple, using props on their side or my side. And one of the things that goes together with my first point of organization and yours, keep it simple. I will often send a list ahead of time the day before and say tomorrow, this is what we're doing. Could you have them bring one, two, these three things? Or this one thing really needs to be in their tutoring bag for our session tomorrow. It will really help in what we're doing.
Hanna:
So that leads into my second top three items, is make it as multisensory as you can. Now we are not talking about "bring your sand tray and your shaving foam by the computer." That's not what we're talking about. But you can still have it really multisensory and multisensory basically is where we are taking one modality, adding another layer of another modality and maybe a third one, where you are having multiple parts in the brain activated simultaneously. And when that happens, our retention is better, our focus is more, we're more engaged, we're able to zone in rather than zoning out. So one of the things I like to do, even just getting them to use the back of their pencil and they will write on their hand, just with the eraser side and I'll say, Show me that you wrote a D and I can read backwards. They think that, oh, it's backwards and I'm like, it's okay. It's good for me.
Michelle:
That's why we're born to be teachers, right? Cause we can read upside down, backwards.
Hanna:
Exactly. They can use the pencil eraser and just show me that they're writing it on their hand. And that's some tactile feedback, that they're practicing those Bs and Ds that might be tricky. Or I always ask them to bring Play-doh and on a little tray, they will form the letters and then they show it up to me, tracing even just the magnetic letters that they're using. So you do have to get a little bit more creative. Wiki sticks are another favorite thing because they're not sticky on your fingers but they've got a little bit of wax coating. So my students just put it on the back of their whiteboard and then we can build some letters like that. And then again you can trace it so you can make it multisensory and you can add in the movement so that it makes it like we're engaging together. And I'm not just the one entertaining you. What's your second tip?
Michelle:
Oh my second tip kind of I think goes along with everything we talk about. And it's that you can have all of the lesson plans, you can have all the strategies in your back pocket, you can be the most amazing teacher, but if you don't have a rapport with your students, it's not going to work out. And I always talk to the tutors that come in for coaching about this as well. We need that triangle. You have to work well with the student and you have to work well with the parent. And if it's not a triangle, then it's not a good way for the families to use their minutes or for you to use your minutes. So I talk pretty heavily about establishing the rapport right from day one, where we do a Get To Know You game for sure.
Michelle:
And even continuing, what I realize is, working online, sometimes our empathy doesn't translate. Sometimes how kind we are as a teacher doesn't translate as it would if we were sitting in person. It's a lot easier to be like that in person. There's something, we can lower our voice, we can say okay. Just a little fuzzy feeling we can automatically display in front of the child if we're sitting right next to them. But online, it's a little bit more tricky, wouldn't you say, to develop that relationship.
Hanna:
Yes.
Michelle:
So what I tell teachers that I do is I actually leave five minutes at the end of class and you talked on the Live about the One Minute Check-in at the beginning, which I love that too. And we always want to do that. How was your weekend?
Hanna:
Right.
Michelle:
But I always say we leave five minutes at the end for Share. And I've shared my dog I think 200 times. But these kids are so afraid of and they start to come to the screen and say, Oh I know what I'm going to use for my share today. I think the other way you can think about it is, if a student start to talk off tangent and go in another direction, you can say, Oh that sounds like a good share. And then they always know they have minutes at the end-
Hanna:
Yeah.
Michelle:
To share. And then also, if they're like, oh when is this going to be over? I never have to say, it's going to be over in 33 minutes. I can say, 33 minutes to share and it just puts a little positive spin on it. And I've been introduced to grandmas and grandpas. Remember that you're being transported into the student's home. It's very special for them and there's lots of things in their room that they're sometimes sitting in where they're trying to do stuff. There's lots of things for them to share with you. And that works in person as well.
Hanna:
Yeah.
Michelle:
You always want to hear something about our students and it builds up this foundation of getting to know their interests, where you might be able to weave in some of that into your lesson.
Hanna:
Yeah.
Michelle:
And just a good general rapport is extremely important for success as an online teacher and a teacher in person. I would say it is one of the foundations for success. You can have whatever strategies, but if your student is not connected to you, if you haven't established a good connection, it doesn't really matter. So I wouldn't feel bad about not collecting data on the first day. Establish that relationship and start getting to know the student, get a Get To Know You game. And that would be my tip number two.
Hanna:
Yeah, and I think some of those pieces, talking at the beginning about the organization even, having some things that you already have on hand, it could be a funny video that you send them throughout the year, or you send them an email directly to the student rather than to the parent, or a quick- I love sending a quick video of myself to them and say, "Just checking in today, I have a little treat for you." And I'll send them a little joke. And then, now they've started doing that back.
Hanna:
So some of these kids I've never met before in real life because they live in Chicago or New York or somewhere else in Canada, and yet I'm able to say to them, "Hey, I just went for a walk and look what I found." And I show them some little random photo and they're starting to do it with me. Look what we did on our vacation. Look at what I found [inaudible 00:15:36] . And I think that the connection together really starts to build very strong, and maybe even stronger because it's one on one, right? They're getting all of our attention.
Michelle:
I also think in this time of a little bit where they've gone through isolation and-
Hanna:
Yes.
Michelle:
They are yearning for a connection with an adult. They really are.
Hanna:
Yeah, yeah.
Michelle:
And I think one thing we also think about is even though the pandemic has, it's evened itself out or, kids are back in school, it hasn't changed kids' behavior. We have a lot of kids that go home and they go right to the video game, to YouTube. They really are crying out for adult attention. They really are. And just giving them that positive thing. And one thing that about share is that it's never really about schoolwork. It's always about their interests and what they know and want to share. Share is never about to them is never like, you did, I always say you did a really great job, but I'm not going to say that for the share. I'm not going to say, right, you did an amazing job at reading today. No, it's going to be completely different. What you mentioned just-
Hanna:
Yeah.
Michelle:
Totally about their interests.
Hanna:
And I think watching their interest helps me make it really individualized for them as well. So for an example, one day, one of my students, we had been working on real and nonsense for words. And that those nonsense words were so important because they might be part of a bigger word later on as some of those important little syllable chunks. So we were playing in Lively Letters with Reading with TLC. They call nonsense words, alien words. So we were talking about human words versus alien words. And so I said, Oh, is this the little alien word? And I had just this random little quick drawing of an alien.
Hanna:
The next time he had gone to some, just out and about where he was, and he was in this store where there was these little, plastic, glow-in-the-dark aliens. And he brought me a package of these aliens and he said, now you can do this game with all the students and have the aliens land on these planets where they live, but only the humans can live on planet earth. And it was those kinds of little things where well, he was so in tune with what we were doing and outside of the session he was like, aliens! Right away. And his mom was like, aliens? What his Hanna teaching you. But it was a way that we connected. And so the next time I shared that with my student, the next student, I sent a little video back to the original student, like, "my other students are loving the aliens. Thank you so much."
Hanna:
And it was those little moments that I think are really important for them, that they're finding a book or finding a story about baseball because they are really passionate about baseball. So my third and final tip is setting clear expectations both with the child but also with the family. That kind of goes along, yes, with organization, but even as things arise, sometimes you can't plan for everything that's ever going to happen in a session or behind the scenes as well.
Hanna:
And so, be able to protect your business, protect yourself as a human being and really have that child understand in a clear way, quickly send a video home, share some pictures of how I want their tutoring bag to always stay organized. Some of those little details like that can really help the transitions from maybe when you have to go online to back in person or any of those pieces, it can really help them know what to expect. And when they know what to expect from you, they're able to really fill in those pieces where they're not confused, the anxiety minimizes and you can really jump right in to the work to actually getting progress and success on what we're working on. Do you have a final tip?
Michelle:
I do. Can I say something about, I love how you're using technology, Hanna. Cause you're using it not only to share videos of yourself and they share.
Hanna:
Exactly.
Michelle:
Maybe you're sending text. That's a very personalized way of using technology and-
Hanna:
Yeah. Yeah.
Michelle:
Kudos to you. My final tip is add in movement. I did not know how much this was needed until I went online. I used to be a special education teacher and I would shuffle five kids down to a learning center that was also shared by maybe two other groups and we were divided by cardboard and there's no way I could move my kids around. And everyone was telling my kids to be quiet anyway, cause I would always get them riled up. But when you're online, you have to take advantage of what you said one on one. You have to advantage of the kind situation you're in and the kids will love it when you add in little bursts of movement.
Michelle:
Now we could go to a website, we could go to a website, GoNoodle. And there's nothing wrong going to GoNoodle, for sure. But one of the things again, I shared in the Live was that you as a teacher, remember that when you're going into someone's, you're Zooming into someone's house, you already lost control, right? As you turn on the meeting, you already lost control a little bit.
Michelle:
So, the way that I try to explain it to teachers is, you want to stay in control of that movement break. You really want to stay, so whether you put on music, Siri's really great at that. I have kids' favorite songs saved on a playlist so I can just play it and I'm in control of how many minutes it lasts.
Hanna:
You're absolutely right.
Michelle:
You get up and move with them. So I make a lot of games for teachers where a bonus card adds in a little burst of movement. Today we're doing an apples game and we climb the ladder like we're climbing to get apples. We picked up apples and put them in a basket. And this is really for those really little wiggly ones. This is really for the really younger ones. For the older ones, they like to see you move around a little bit.
Michelle:
So I've been told to cluck around the room like a chicken and why, Hanna, if it gets kids reading, go ahead and do it. And I like to get up and get silly with the kids. And I just found that little bursts of movement really help. And it just has to be connected to what you're learning. So it's not so taken away from your lesson and your word study, whatever. There's a way that you can take your structure literacy lesson and you can literally put a little moving break in any part of that. And you also have to read the student.
Hanna:
Right.
Michelle:
And really realize when are they having, when do they need a moving break and just act on it, because it's not going to get any better if you wait. And that's what their body is telling you. That's what their body's telling you, that I need to wiggle and I need to get my wiggles out and it's okay.
Hanna:
Yeah. And I think we talked about a few things on the Live as well, both you and I in the middle of our podcast today have stopped at how to drink of water. And sometimes I'll say like, Whew, my brain needs some water. How about you? We can do cheers through the computer and we have a little sip of water and sometimes I will do a little check-in and I teach them how to advocate for themselves as well. Cause sometimes they are so good that they're just planted there and they don't want to ask for something. And I'll say, I can tell something's on your mind, What do you need? Because I think that's also part of it. Kids need to be able to say, I need a movement break. And then I'll say, excellent, let's do, here's two choices, right? Cause when they have all kinds of ideas, you're like, ah, I can't quite bake a cookie with you over the screen.
Gain access to my ever-growing structured literacy mini-lessons and resources!
Michelle:
Ha ha ha.
Hanna:
So some of my favorites would be say to each other play the Would You Rather game? That's a great one for older kids because you're still engaged in the screen. But you can play that game. You could do a charade game. Can you act out? You think of something and I'm going to guess what it is. An art game. So sometimes I'll say, Can you read my mind? So I've drawn something on my whiteboard and you have 10 guesses to see what I drew. So can you read my mind? And they can ask me questions. Is it an animal? No. Things like that. And then sometimes we'll even do, we're both going to draw something and then we give three clues for what it was, and then you have to guess it in three guesses only. So some of those are a good brain break because it's a little bit of creativity that they can add in and they can make the game what it is.
Michelle:
Yeah.
Hanna:
There's also games. Have you ever played Squiggle game on the computer too? You could either do it with tech or no tech. So if they're just doing it on their whiteboard, I will show them what kind of little squiggle. So I might draw the number three and they'll say, Turn that number three into something. So I don't have something, You're not busting it, but you have to use that number three in your drawing and you have one minute and I'll give them that one minute timer. So some of those brain breaks do not have to take 10 minutes.
Michelle:
Right.
Hanna:
It's not taking away from the learning. It's actually adding to the learning because we're using a different modality or a different part of our brain to be thinking and taking a break from the hard work of reading or spelling. So I just really loved having a chat with you today because I think that there's just so much that can be said for online or in person tutoring.
Hanna:
The biggest message that I think both you and I have said is, don't wait. When you have that little inside feeling as a parent and you're wondering if your child could use some extra support, we're not waiting for the kids who need oodles of intervention. We can also provide tutoring for those students who need just a little bit of a boost or that you don't want them to fall behind the cracks. Or maybe classrooms that students are not able to get that structured literacy and you want your own child to have some really specific structured literacy time. I think that's the other piece that's really important to say to parents. Any closing comments? I think you've got lots of other great things to say, but do you have one more little tidbit for people?
Michelle:
Just to piggyback on that, I would say that with the not waiting, that our goal as tutors is not to work with a child forever. Our goal as a tutor is to get our child, and it's really sad for us as tutors.
Hanna:
Yeah.
Michelle:
To say goodbye. But our goal is to get the student independent. That's what our goal is. So don't wait and just know that the time is valuable, your minutes are valuable, the parents' minutes are valuable, the time, and most importantly, the child's minute are, that they're invested is so important. So just developing that rapport and having a lesson that everybody is enjoying and you're all in sync. And that's what I would say.
Hanna:
That's right. All right. Thank you so much for your time. Have a good rest of your day.
Michelle:
You too. Bye.
Episode Resources
Connect with Michelle:
Michelle’s Website: https://www.readtorewire.com;
Connect with Michelle on IG: http://www.Instagram.com/readtorewire
Connect with Michelle on Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/readtorewire
Additional Resources:
Freebie! Checklist to Get Ready to Teach Online: https://cheerful-speaker-5789.ck.page/b230f58cbe
InSwan Document Camera
Amazon Canada affiliate link:
Amazon US affiliate link:
Check out the LIVE with Hanna and Michelle all about working with wiggly littles.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/Chu6YquprZ_/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link