How To Tutor

by Samuel L. Blumenfeld

How To Tutor, by noted writer Samuel L. Blumenfeld, first appeared 38 years ago. It has without change continued to be an outstanding manual with which to teach the Three R's. It has not changed because it works so well. It is a whole school in one book. Its three parts are (1) Sam Blumenfled's amazingly easy to teach systematic, intensive phonics READING instruction program. (2) His effective CURSIVE HANDWRITING program and (3) his equally effective ARITHMETIC PROGRAM. Has been used by hundreds of thousands parents, teachers and tutors. Mary Pride, leading homeschooling materials reviewer, calls it a best value: $ 24.95, 298 pages. How To Tutor works at ALL ages. Anyone who can read can teach the Three R's with it. WHY IS HOW TO TUTOR IMPORTANT? Dr. Blumenfeld warns: Quote: Most parents wait until their child is having difficulty at school before they think of providing remediation. Sometimes the child is so far behind, so confused, so frustrated by not learning in the first two grades, that the remedial program looks long and difficult. However, proper tutoring at the preschool level or in the first two grades, as a preventive measure, can make sure that the child has the foundation on which to build achievement Unquote. How To Tutor provides parents and teachers with a complete instructional program: step-by-step lesson plans in the Three R's. First out in 1973 it was to help public school students. Since then, with the continued decline in many plublic schools HOMESCHOOLING has become much more important. Homeschool families discovered what a gem this book is for them. (1) READING: The big problem today. How To Tutor shows how to avoid the confusion in teaching reading that prevails in our schools today. 117 complete lessons. Contains everything you need to teach your student to be a top reader. You learn the dirty little secret professional educators keep from you: It is really EASY TO TEACH READING! There are only 44 sounds (Phonograms) you need to teach your student to build a high level of reading skill. (2) CURSIVE HANDWRITING: Grandparents today are often shocked to learn that in many schools cursive is not taught anymore. With How To Tutor you are given all the tools you need to teach this important skill with ease. Here is another little secret: Cursive can be taught BEFORE printing (ball & stick). There are only THREE basic strokes involved in cursive handwriting. Most children can learn these at a surprisingly early age. Learning about this will amaze you. 73 complete lessons. (3)ARITHMETIC: Again quoting Dr. Blumenfeld: In teaching arithmetic it is important to convey the genius of the system itself. Next to the alphabet, it is the greatest mental tool ever devised by man. We should approach the subject with the excitement it deserves. Any teacher who makes arithmetic dull does so because he does not understand its beautiful simplicity, logic and facility which permits us to do so much with so little.Unquote. Covers addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, weights, time, and the calender. Everything up to just before geometry and algebra. All this in 67 lessons. FINAL WORD: Anyone can use these lesson plans: students, parents, teachers, tutors, retired teachers, housewives and grandparents. Tutoring, by the way, can turn out to be a good way to earn extra money while aiding people who need help to improve their reading, handwriting and arithmetic ability. Some of the claims we make may appear unbelievable. They are TRUE. We have heard from countless users who canot say enough about its simplicity and effectiveness. See for yourself. Moneyback guarantee. Also available at Amazon: CD ROM (ISBN 9780941995474) and Plastic Comb

Genres: Education, Nonfiction

Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Matt McCullough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book, some of the tactics may seem a bit old but very applicable.

[A Jolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good overall manual of what you can use in a homeschool setting if you don't know where to start.

[Sophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

How to Tutor is an instruction manual for parents (or teachers, apparently) on how to teach young children basic reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. He breaks down each section in a lengthy list of lessons with examples, encouraging the tutor/teacher to be patient and spend enough time on each before continuing on.

I thought Blumenfield offered some useful strategies / suggestions. Certainly if a child were struggling in school, I could see how this would be helpful to a parent trying to rectify the situation.

However, this book is out of date. Originally published in the 1970s, the 1986 edition isn't any more up to date. It was kind of funny how he talked about the role of house wives, and his rant against print (as opposed to cursive) handwriting was interesting. Overall I'd say I did learn something, but I wouldn't recommend this book to its intended audience or to anyone who thought How to Tutor would do that. There must be a more contemporary / relevant guidebook out there.

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book my mother used to teach me how to read. Well actually its the 1973 edition but I couldn't find that on here. I was reading it to see if when my child is old enough if it would be useful, and I believe it would be. Hes fairly old fashioned. Not too surprising. He was old when he wrote it in the 70's.

Some of what he has to say needs to be taken with a grain of salt, such as the statement he blithely makes about how children won't balk at inconsistency in the language, the exact problem I had with learning to read.

But much of the basic premise works. And even now I found that going through his exercises and reading his explanations for spelling and how words are constructed really improved my understanding of the language. Its funny how after reading copiously for years my basics sort of fell out of my head.

Over all I believe that a person using this book would have to be careful to tailor the lessons to the child they were teaching, but you would not require any other books to teach a child.

[Michael Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the title is misleading. There is some preliminary material on tutoring in general, but the bulk of this book deals with how to teach the basics: elementary level reading, cursive writing, and arithmetic. The 1973 edition I read was not outdated at all in what it advocated teaching. The absence of any mention of computers, for instance, is irrelevant and references to a "blackboard" ought to be readily translatable to whatever the current tool may be. If anything, this book is prescient in identifying the disturbing trends in mass education that have only gotten worse over the decades. This book could certainly be used by anyone teaching those three vital subjects today, including the growing population of homeschoolers. Blumenfeld is clear in his approach and the choices are well thought-out and not capricious.

[Hope · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I had hoped it would be. Wanted info on tutoring, not a program for teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic.