by Erica L. Meltzer | Apr 22, 2022 | Issues in Education, Phonics, Reading (SAT & ACT), Tutor Interviews, Tutoring, Tutors
At the beginning of March, I spoke with Amy Seeley and Mike Bergin at the Tests and the Rest podcast about some of the issues involved in helping struggling teenage readers prepare for standardized tests. The interview was originally scheduled for 25 minutes, but our conversation picked up so much steam that Amy and Mike decided to keep going and turn the interview into a two-parter.
The first part aired a few weeks ago, but I’ve been so busy that I actually forgot to post it (whoops!), but now that the second part has aired, I really don’t have an excuse.
Listen to Part 1, and Part 2. (more…)
by Lisa Dzialo | Aug 24, 2019 | Blog, Tutor Interviews
Bio
Tanya has been tutoring for 25 years. In college, she first pursued a major in math/science; however, she missed the humanities and made the switch to history. She also trained to teach and tutor the GRE and SAT CR and M for the Princeton Review.
After earning an education degree and a teaching certification, she pursued a 10 year career teaching reading, interpretation and writing in social studies classes, including AP US History. She continued to tutor math on the side and in Ridgewood, she worked as a teacher’s aide in Chemistry, Geometry and Alg 2 classes.
Tanya and her husband moved to Ridgewood (her hometown) with their two children and started The Ridgewood Tutor in 2012. She took official SATs at local high schools and earned an 800 in CR, a 790 in Math, and an 800 in Writing over the two times she took the test in 2015.
Strong scores don’t always necessarily translate into good teaching–that’s where those ten years of teaching have helped her develop the necessary planning skills. She has organized lessons for the SATs, ACTs and GREs from wonderful resource material that she hand-picked after much trial and error.
Educational/certification details: National Board Certified and state certified in social studies education by NJ and NY, she also holds a Masters Degree in Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Good to know: Tanya gives presentations featuring SAT and ACT tips several times during the year at the Ridgewood Library. Check out the home page of this site for upcoming presentations, or follow her twitter feed (which also features general college prep retweets).
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by Lisa Dzialo | May 24, 2019 | Blog, Tutor Interviews
Photo credit: Tricia Koning Photography
For this interview, we are happy to present Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein Graff, professors at the University of Illinois-Chicago. They are the authors of They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, one of the most widely used college composition texts in the United States. In addition, their work has had an incalculable influence on both the original version of The Critical Reader and the AP Language and Composition edition of that book. We are enormously grateful for their participation in this series.
Bio
Gerald Graff, a Professor of English and Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago adn 2008 President of the Modern Language Association of America, has had a major impact on teachers through such books as Professing Literature: An Institutional History, Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education, and, most recently, Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind.
Cathy Birkenstein, who first developed the templates used in They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, is a Lecturer in English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She received her PhD in American literature and is currently working on a study of Booker T. Washington. Together Gerald and Cathy teach courses in composition and conduct campus workshops on writing. They live with their son, Aaron, in Chicago.
How did you come to write They Say/I Say? Did it develop organically from your teaching over an extended period, or were there specific incidents that inspired you to write it?
It was more of a slow process that developed over time in the 1990S as we compared our experiences as college teachers. What struck us most vividly at this time was our students’ widespread confusion over how to write an academic paper. To us, this confusion seemed largely unnecessary since, in our view, academic writing follows a rather conventional, elemental pattern that students could readily learn. As we thought about our own struggles with writing, and about what successful writers do, we came to believe that, despite its many moving parts, academic writing has one big constant: the move of entering a conversation, which is usually done by summarizing what other people have said or are saying about your subject and then using that summary to launch your own view, whether to agree, disagree, or some combination of both. (more…)
by Lisa Dzialo | Apr 2, 2019 | Blog, Tutor Interviews
Tell us about your company.
My company is named LarryPrep. It consists of just one person – me!
How did you get started in tutoring and what is your favorite part about it?
We have to turn the clock back to 1992 in Edison, New Jersey. At that time I was the Social Studies Supervisor for the Edison Public Schools. Dr. Kresky, the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, called an emergency meeting of all supervisors to develop an action plan to counter the decline in district SAT scores. The other supervisors blamed a variety of factors ranging from harsh scoring scales to unmotivated students. Finally, I volunteered to teach an after school “Crash Course.” That afternoon I drove to nearby Princeton and bought a number of SAT prep books including a College Board book with 10 real SATs. I spent the next week poring over the books. I then created a series of after school lessons focusing on vocabulary and critical reading. Verbal scores rose an average of 40 points! As the expression goes, the rest is history. Soon Dr. K scheduled me to teach a Crash Course at both high schools and during the summer. I love the challenge of working with students to achieve a common goal of mastering a difficult test. I especially enjoy working with high school students. Their energy and commitment are contagious! (more…)
by Lisa Dzialo | Mar 5, 2019 | Blog, Tutor Interviews
Bio
Richard McManus is a committed behavioral executive who has designed and delivered training programs for executives, managers and teachers. His mission is to increase the ability of USA schools and teachers to teach reading to all students.
Richard founded The Fluency Factory after 20 years of dreaming, thinking and planning. He is and always will be committed to serving all students — both struggling students and high achieving students. He created a system of fluency charts to measure skills and build the love of learning. The charts provide a direct measurement that can be communicated immediately to the student. They can see their learning from minute to minute, day to day, week to week, in clear, graphic terms. Seeing this progress gives the student the confidence that he or she can do more, and that learning does not have to stop, or be bound by present skill deficits (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Feb 5, 2019 | Blog, Tutor Interviews
Bio
Andrea Kay McFarland is the president and founder of Kay Tutoring. She attended Yale for her B.A. in History and graduated in 2005. A Minnesota native, she also has a Master’s in Education from the University of Minnesota. Starting out as a volunteer, Andrea discovered her passion for education and tutoring in 2000. Her professional tutoring career began in 2006, when she began providing formal academic and test prep services.
While she is incredibly invested in helping her students achieve academic success, Andrea and her tutors strive to make personal connections with all of their students via their interests, realizing that each one is more than just a letter grade or a test score.As an interviewer for Yale University, Andrea has also seen the other side of the college application process and is able to bring her wealth of experience to helping students prepare for interviews and write standout admissions essays.
Andrea lives with her husband, daughter and dog in Plymouth, Minnesota. She named Kay Tutoring after her maiden name, “Kay.”
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