I label myself, among other things, a reading tutor. Many other people label themselves similarly. More than once I have been struck by the fact that some of those others have something very different from what I have in mind when we speak of tutoring in reading. In fact, it can be so different that I am certain that either I or they should stop using the same label.
Which is not to say that all the people who provide tutoring should think the same way or do the same things. Yet there are certain aspects of the work that transpires in Be Brilliant! Tutoring’s center which distinguish it from what presently goes on in most other tutorial centers or in regular, ongoing classes in schools. Examining those distinguishing aspects may yield insights into a way of working that could then have broader appeal and application, so that the regular classroom teacher or other tutors might ultimately emulate what will best serve the interests of their students.
1. In Be Brilliant! Tutoring Sessions, the Work Is Custom Tailored
“Individualized instruction” is a worn out phrase. Most educators would agree that individualizing instruction makes sense; however, its usefulness as a concept has been diluted by recipes for instruction, the proliferation of commercially prepared workbooks, dittos and other materials, as well as various test-teach-retest models for instruction.
In sessions run by Be Brilliant! tutors, the actual, moment to moment needs of the learner are analyzed and met on the spot. The more traditional approach to individualization — usually referred to as diagnostic-prescriptive teaching — is thus replaced by a shifting and wholly flexible responsiveness to the changing needs of the learner. No preset instructional steps, whether computerized or performed in person, no matter how pinpointedly defined, can replace a tutor who maintains a vulnerability to the real person with whom one is confronted, and who is prepared to reassess, reformulate, and modify their approach at any moment, according to the impacts received.
There is no special talent or hidden magic that allows the reading tutor constantly to mold their instruction according to the real course of events that transpire. It is only the maintenance of an attitude of suspended judgment, one which dictates an empirical approach that is continuously open to modification and refinement. Rather than thinking, “I know a priori just what to do for this student, based on the results of this or that assessment procedure,” Be Brilliant! tutors accept that it is only in the actual working together that the truth can be revealed, and that such truth can change as the very result of the work. By remaining open to the uniqueness of what goes on, one learns from each and every student how to custom tailor the work for that particular individual.
2. In Be Brilliant! Tutoring Sessions, the Work Is Short-Term and Intensive
Whatever problems may have prevented a student from reaching a sufficient mastery of reading, it is incumbent on the tutor to strike as directly as possible at the very heart of the matter. Remediation must be capsulized, so that the time required to achieve a solution can be thought of in terms of hours of work together, rather than months or years.
A sense of responsibility permeates the Be Brilliant! tutors regarding the use of the minutes available during a session with a student. Each minute is considered precious, both in terms of its relative scarcity and of its potential to yield significant learning. As much progress as the tutor is capable of initiating needs to be packed into each minute. But this compression of much learning into a relatively short span of time can only be accomplished through a sensitivity to and compassion for the person worked with, so that the carefully orchestrated momentum is not felt as undue pressure.
Be Brilliant! tutors know that rapid remediation is possible only when the learner takes charge of their own learning. Therefore, exercises are given only when they can generate criteria, and lead to the situation where the student knows not only what is being asked of her, but why it is being asked. For example, because in English so many different sounds may be given to a particular letter or group of letters, and because context does not always provide meaning, one’s inherent quest for growth and independence actually forces one to refer, at appropriate times, to the dictionary. Once the relevant criteria regarding the nature of the language are established for a student, the tutor trusts that the student will use the dictionary when necessary and will in fact teach themself, at a certain point, how to reach meaning through that portion of the written language which remains to be conquered. The tutor knows, at such a stage, that their job is completed.
The idea that the student in reality is teaching themself to read brings us to the last and perhaps most significant point.
3. In a Be Brilliant! Tutoring Session, It Is Not Reading that Is Taught
That bizarre sounding statement expresses a profound awareness on the part of the tutor, that the content of the language is the concern of the learner, not of the person working with the learner. The tutor attends to such matters as: Is this person looking at what is in front of them? Is this person listening to themself? Are they comparing what is seen to what is heard? Are they stubborn? Or confused? Or undisciplined?
To the extent that such questions are entertained, the tutor can be said to be concerned with functionings of the student. Once the appropriate functionings are operative, the student plainly teaches themself how to read, and the tutor more or less delegates to themself the role of bystander for whatever short period of time they need to be convinced that the student is on the right track.
The talents of the tutor are truly tapped only when they encounter a particularly persistent misuse, by a person, of their mental powers. A student may appear trapped, for example, in the bad habit of looking only at the first few letters of a multisyllable word and guessing at what the word is, with little or no regard for the semantic or syntactic content of what precedes or follows. Exercise after exercise and/or admonition after admonition may produce improved performance from time to time or for a selected set of words covered during the tutoring sessions; but the student may nevertheless remain essentially entrenched in a way of functioning that causes them undue trouble when they attempt to use reading as a tool for one purpose or another. In such a situation, the tutor’s responsibility is to devise yet another technique, one that can affect the student at a deeper level of awareness, so that they are agitated enough to effect internally the necessary reconsideration of how they are relating to printed material. Thus, time is consumed in the tutorial sessions, not in acquiring subject matter, but in reaching that moment when the student finds within themself the clarity and the resources to relate appropriately to the challenges as the challenges in fact descend upon them.
Theodore Swartz, Ph.D., Co-Founder & Co-Manager, Be Brilliant! Tutoring, LLC
