MAJOR TUTORING

In my job as a tutor for two local school systems, I have noticed that many students struggle with fractions. There are plenty of adults that have problems with understanding fractions too. I recently read a few articles that indicated children start learning fractions around nine-years-old. I'm convinced that this issue needs to be addressed earlier in the educational learning process. I recently read how Ruth Spiro developed the Baby Loves Science series published by Charlesbridge.  On her blog, Ruth discussed how she spent about a year researching science topics to fully understand how best to explain things in very simple terms. In addition, she learned that the best way to present the science to young children was through a story with awesome illustrations of other young children. After some thought, falling back on my years of engineering and math experience, I have some solid ideas how best to approach this issue. I am in the process of developing several picture bo

It's been a while since I posted on this blog. I have been very busy tutoring though, both working for the Town of Vernon and doing private tutoring work. Some weeks I've actually tutored 34 hours, which is close to being full-time. I want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season! This is a busy time of the year and it can be stressful too. I hope everyone gets to spend time with their families and friends! Looking forward, I hope 2019 is a good year for all of you. I'm very fortunate to be employed by the Town of Vernon at Vernon Center Middle School (VCMS).  I especially enjoy working with our students in Room 1 and with the staff. VCMS opens back up on January 3, 2019. In the meantime, my schedule is wide open for private tutoring from December 26 to January 2, 2019. If you know someone that is struggling in a particular subject, then I encourage you to contact me by leaving a comment on this blog. Thank you for reading this post and visiting my blog.

As we near the end of June this year, all schools are out for the summer by now.  I'm a firm believer that students need time off from their school work/activities once summer is here. So go on vacations, take day trips to your favorite lakes or ocean beaches, go to summer camp, and generally enjoy yourself, for a while. There are some students that opt to sprinkle in some school work in the summer by taking summer classes or working with a tutor on subjects they struggled with during the school year. This is not a bad thing though. But it's important to set goals and have a tangible plan on how you will incorporate learning into your summer plans. High school students can get a jump start on their college degrees by taking certain college classes during the summer or even as part of a high school /college credit program. Many colleges have two summer sessions so perhaps the answer is to sign up for a course in the second session before returning in the fall to regular cl

A number of years ago, I purchased a book entitled The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Poetry, written by Nikki Moustaki and published by Alpha Books. It has become an important reference book for me as I continue to hone my writing skills and tutor students in English and other writing classes. On page 104 of the book, Nikki includes a short course in scansion, a method that poets use to measure metrical patterns. She explains that a metrical foot is a unit of measure that measures the stresses in a line of poetry. For example, let's take the popular children's book by Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham. Two of the  lines read: "I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them Sam-I-am." Both last words of these two sentences rhyme, am versus Sam. Also, notice that there are 8 syllables in each sentence. When you read the two sentences out loud, they flow quite nicely. Each line is composed of 4 iamb feet. Iambic means each foot is composed of one unstressed s

I have worked with many middle and high school students on math subjects. One common theme I have seen is that many students struggle with doing math calculations if the quizzes and tests rearrange how problems are structured. For example, if a student is used to calculating the slope of a straight line, m in the equation y = mx + b, they get tripped up if the problem asks for the value of b. My approach to teaching math involves helping students to thoroughly understand how to solve problems no matter what information is given to them. Also, the best way to get good at math is repetition. Each student needs to do extra work to master many concepts. Without doing this work, students freeze up in quizzes and tests and get poor results. My goal is to get students to be able to do math problems "backwards and forwards". This approach builds confidence and leads to better quiz and test results. I hope you find this post helpful. Ken Major, Tutor

Whether you are studying for a quiz on the chemical symbols for each element or the names of each bone in a human body, I find the best way to remember these things is to associate each item with something you have an interest or are familiar with. For instance, the symbol for tin is Sn. Now many elements use just the first letter of the element as the symbol for it, like O for oxygen or N for nitrogen. This is not the case with tin though. Many years ago I thought of a way to remember Sn was the symbol for tin. If you like golf, there's a famous golfer by the name of Sam Snead. Anyway, Mr. Snead hits golf balls into cups on the green, that is, "tin cups". That's how I remember it to this day. Try doing these associations yourself. The more personal it is to you, the more likely you'll remember the reference. It works! Ken