Paired Thinking – 21 Tips For Tutors – Reminders
- Aim to improve quality of thinking by asking helpful and intelligent questions which give clues.
- Encourage tutees - it will be hard for them.
- Pause at any natural break during reading to think and talk
- Don't expect too much
- Encourage tutees to "think aloud"
- Sometimes try to "brainstorm" answers together
- Never say "No" or "That's wrong" - always ask another question to give a clue
- It is not a "test" - often there is no one "right" answer
- Tutees can ask questions, too!
- It's OK to say you "don't know" - but how you might find out?
- Give some time to think - but not too long
- Praise - like "Good, I can tell you thought hard about that"
- Think up your own questions
- Read bits of the book again if you need to
- Leave out questions which don't apply
- A good question: "How do you know that?"
- If tutees don't remember, it does not always mean they never did understand
- In the "BEFORE" Stage, the "Five Finger Test" for difficulty of book means you:
- choose any page of the book and spread out 5 fingers on one hand
- put the 5 fingers down on the text and see if you can read all 5 words correctly
- repeat on another 3 pages.
- If the tutor struggles to read more than one or two of the 20 "fingered" words, the book is probably too hard for the tutor
- If the tutee can read all but one or two of the 20 words, the book is probably too easy for the tutee
- In "DURING READING", work through the Activities in any order
- In "AFTER READING", it is usually easier if the tutor does any writing
- Praise again at the end!