A Toolbox of Terms for Volunteer Tutoring

In this age of educator accountability, many schools use terminology that may not be familiar to volunteer reading tutors. To avoid confusion and give tutors research-based techniques and strategies to use in their sessions with protégés (I hate the word "tutee"), I have developed a short and simple list of terms and an explanation. In each case, you will find an example of how to translate the term into vernacular anyone can understand.

Paired reading is a remarkable tool to use with early readers or with readers who lack fluency and struggle with nearly every sentence. It is simply the tutor reading the first sentence, paragraph or page and then the child reading the next sentence or paragraph or page. Treasure Bay Publishers specializes in creating books for kindergarten through third grade that take on this exact format. They are called "