One exercise that I like to do with all new students is a short writing project: I ask students to write about one personal attribute that they are proud of (smart, hardworking, etc.). The project helps students think of themselves in a positive way before we start working together, and it helps me get a sense of their writing and reasoning abilities.

I work with every student on developing effective learning habits by frequently revisiting the processes through which learning occurs. I incorporate art and games into materials for my younger students, to make learning fun. I help my older students take ownership of their academic goals by encouraging the daily habits necessary to achieve them.

A recent Stanford study reveals that students who practice self-affirmation are half likely to fail as students who do not. I use positive feedback to encourage my students, but I also encourage my students to encourage themselves by recognizing their own achievements and abilities.

Students learn best through repetition, but it often helps to repeat lessons, ideas, and information in new ways. Some students are visual learners; others are conversational, literary, and tactical learners. Varying the approaches most useful to each of these learning styles helps all of my students learn in new ways, and encourages repetition without inducing boredom.

I often start with a writing activity. I ask my student to pick at least one word from a list of "personal qualities" adjectives. The student writes as much as she/he needs in order to explain why that quality describes her/him as a person, and why that quality is important/valuable. This activity helps me get to know the students, but it also gives me a sample of their writing that helps me understand their spelling, vocabulary, and ability to connect written ideas to one another.

Depending on the student, I have an arsenal of exercises we can do together to improve reading comprehension. For primary-level students, I like to close readings of Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends." The short poetry helps minimize frustration because it's easy to complete; at the same time, Silverstein likes to make up a lot of words, and his poems therefore require attention to context in order to understand what they mean. For secondary-level students, I like to work on bullet point précis and reverse-outlining. This breaks essays down into short pieces of information, and helps students better understand how these pieces connect and build upon each other in support of a thesis.