ACT Writing and ACT Reading tutor

About Renee

"Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world."
--Malala Yousafzai

I entered the tutoring profession inspired by the light of that quote. That light led me through five years of tutoring high school students in San Francisco, CA and Atlanta, GA. I teach the English, Reading, and Writing on the SAT/ACT. I teach GRE and GMAT classes at Georgia Tech, Morehouse, KSU, CSU, and Georgia State. Consequently, I am passionate about the written word.

THE RAW FACTS:
I graduated from The American University with a Bachelor degree in Literature. I spent years as a journalist in newsrooms across the country before putting aside that writing career to teach. I’m also an acting graduate of The National Shakespeare Academy, which renders me an exceptional Shakespeare tutor. I have taught with Varsity Tutors and The Curie Learning Center, and Success Prep. I teach independently and have a website that presents an overview of what I offer: www.wordsinc.company.

MY STUDENTS
Most of my students are from private and public high schools, with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. I’ve taught nearly one hundred students in SAT/ACT testing and Literature. As a result of my methods, all of my students have increased their scores. My SAT students saw an average increase of 100-300 points. Likewise, my ACT students saw an average increase of 5-10 points. I have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from students who believe that my passion and progressive reinforcement had a ubiquitously positive effect on their lives. You can read student testimonials on my website.

Some students come to my classes with a dejected attitude toward English. They may love math and science, but English eludes them. They already feel they’ve failed by the time they meet me. To counter that, I try to reward mistakes as well as correct answers. Each mistake is a lesson to conquer. Therefore, if you’re not making a mistake you’re not learning. Likewise, I tutor advanced students who just need an edge over their peers on the test. I take them from “so-so” to “great!”

Each student comes with a different set of challenges and I adapt my teaching style to the student.
· For Visual Learners: I teach using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.
· For Verbal (linguistic): I prefer using words, both in speech and writing.

LOGISTICS:
I travel to the student’s home or local library for a one-on-one session with them. Each tutor session is two hours long. I created study guides for the SAT/ACT, which is a collection of various methods: Princeton, Kaplan, Erica Meltzer, and Kallis.

THE FUTURE
The repetitive one-on-one sessions I’ve had with students has shaped me into an exceptional tutor. I know how to keep the tutoring fresh and adapt it to a student's personality. Consequently, each time I teach I develop new teaching techniques so the next student progressively gets a better tutor with fresh original methods. Malcolm Gladwell developed a learning principle that 10,000 hours of "deliberate practice" are needed to become world-class in any field. I’m not there yet with teaching, but I intend to reach that goal soon.