Hope you are having a wonderful week. If you missed last week’s issue you can find it here –
http://www.cleverapple.com/blog/you-can-make-a-difference-taxes-and-tutor-tips/
Again this is your newsletter is yours if you have ideas of what you would like for us to we would love it if you would let us know what you would like us to talk about. We do this newsletter to help you. If you have some ideas about what to include in future issues you can check the notes below.
If you have any questions. ideas for future issues or thoughts about this issue you can:
Leave us a comment on our blog – http://www.cleverapple.com/blog/
Leave us a comment on facebook – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tutoring-Business-Help/186004714761452?sk=wall
Advice –
In our guide we talk about giving incentives for students. Incentives help for a variety of different reasons. The biggest one is the incentive can help the student want to come to tutoring. Instead of saying ‘Aww Mom do I have to go’, they will be saying… ‘ Is it time to go yet’. Your job as a tutor is to make the session fun for the student as well as help them to learn something. We talk some more about that in the tutor tips below. The problem is you don’t want to spend tons of money. Below are some sites that will help you find stuff for less.
One of my favorite sites – has not only incentive ideas but also stuff you can use for your business (like electronics deals) and around the home.
A great place to find cheap toys (cheap in money but we have ordered several things from them and they have good stuff). Today’s deal (and they change every day) is for an amplifier for handheld gaming devices like the Nintendo. You can get that for a buck. Usually on Fridays they have free shipping as well.
Inspire –
Last week we shared a story of inspiration for you. This week we would love if you shared one of your stories of inspiration… just leave it in the comments section below and who knows we may send you something special.
Tutor Tips –
In our guide we talk about how to find out more information about the students and parents, so we won’t go over that here. After you do the section on questions you should know enough information –
1. Why the student needs tutoring.
This could be anything from trouble with taking tests, to reading comprehension and everything in between. You’ll need to remember this is the reason you’re tutoring them. If they improve in their studies then Mom and Dad will be happy and will become a great source of referrals and future business.
2. Interests and Likes of the child. The more fun you can make the tutoring for the child, the better they will do and the more they’ll want to come to their tutoring session. If it’s a chore for Mom and Dad to get them to come to tutoring, pretty soon it will get old.
3. How to combine what they need and what they like. Now comes the fun part, combining useful instruction with fun stuff. (we discuss this at some length in the video portion of our guide but here are some ideas). You’ll need to be creative. Let’s say we have a 4th grade student and they are having trouble with their reading comprehension skills. Let’s say they like all hand held games. You have a few of the amplifiers we mentioned earlier in stock – after shipping etc. you paid about $3 each for them. Your tutoring session runs an hour. The first 15 minutes or so are spent on homework questions, 40 minutes of practicing reading comprehension and 5 minutes of wrap up / fun.
You show the amplifiers to the child and explain that you’ll give them this after they climb the mountain. Use a mountain progress chart, for every story they read and get most of the questions correct, they’ll move a step up the mountain. If they get all of the questions right they move up two steps. Reward them for working hard, being on time etc. Â You will want to make sure that they get their reward in a month or two.
This works for any age student (don’t let high schoolers fool you.. they like free stuff as well).
Business Help –
In our building a tutor business guide – in the 90 day business help emails we discuss and tell you exactly how to build a website and how to integrate it with facebook. If you have a business we highly recommend you do this for a few different reasons.
1. When you optimize your site correctly, it can become a never ending stream of leads of people that want your service.
2. It allows you to keep updated with your students and their parents.
3. If you’re building a business that you plan on selling someday, these become a very valuable asset.
Some things you may want to look into –
If you don’t have a website / facebook
21 Days to build your website – excellent resource also includes some of the best facebook tutorials we’ve seen.
If you do have a website – below are some tutorials
Building Links – A guide (again won’t cost you anything)
Off the Hook
A game that will take your mind off things for a bit… a warning though it is addictive http://entanglement.gopherwoodstudios.com/light
Resources
Looking for puzzles to help round out your hour of tutoring – here’s a good resource to get you started.
http://www.lessoncorner.com/puzzles
Help us out
If you like what you’ve read we would love to hear from you. If you think you have a friend that would benefit forward this newsletter to them. Like us on facebook – and share your thoughts about us in the comments box below.
Here’s our facebook url – – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tutoring-Business-Help/186004714761452?sk=wall
We look forward to seeing you next week.
JoAnna Hall says
I am impressed by the Tutor Business Guide. I plan to order it. In the meantime do you have any sample flyers that I could personalize and put out. I love the free stuff suggestions, and really all the suggestions, in your e-mails. Thanks. JoAnna.
The-Apple says
Hi JoAnna,
If you use Microsoft products you can find tons of the templates here – http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT010104319.aspx