Teachers, parents, and tutors of all kinds have long struggled with what to do when trying to help a student complete an assignment. The assignment needs to get done—and usually post haste—but the student needs to learn the skills necessary for completing such assignments in the future. Given the time constraints of the situation, however, you’re usually not left with many choices. You can throw up your hands and do nothing, or take charge of the project, telling and showing the student what to do.

With Strategic Tutoring, however, a third option is possible: guiding the student to do the assignment and, at the same time, teaching her a strategy, so she can do similar assignments on her own. The process, as laid out in this breakthrough manual, involves four simple steps. In addition to explaining the Strategic Tutoring process in concise, easy-to-understand language, the manual provides helpful checklists for conducting a Strategic Tutoring session, tips for becoming more effective with the process, an overview of what makes a good strategy, and an actual strategy that you can use to help students read and understand textbooks. Learn more about the strategy and the research behind it.