- Last Updated:
- 6/30/2025
- Tricia Johnson
Feel like your tutoring sessions are always over just as they’re getting started?
Tutoring is a juggling act. With limited time, how do you keep your students engaged, build trust, assess their progress, and cover everything? That’s where a well-structured tutoring lesson plan makes all the difference — and we’re here to help you make one. Meet our example students:
Julia
4th-grade math
Kinesthetic learner
7th session
In-person
30 minutes
Madison
SAT prep
Visual/auditory learner
1st session
Online
1 hour
We’ll show you how to structure a tutoring session and adapt it to their different time limits, grade levels, learning styles, and more.
Download your free tutoring lesson plan template and follow along as we take Julia and Madison through a structured tutoring session.
What Does a Typical Tutoring Session Look Like?
Whatever prep time and details you start with, patterning sessions around a basic structure keeps your tutoring intentional and focused.
Most tutoring sessions split time between these three goals:
- Warm up to build confidence and connection
- Transition to teaching and student practice
- End with an assessment activity
Let’s walk through how to plan these goals into different types of sessions.
How to Structure a Tutoring Session: An Ideal Tutoring Lesson Plan
The point of a structured tutoring lesson plan is to help you hit your three milestones while staying flexible enough to adapt to different session lengths and student needs. Let’s check out structured sessions in action.
Step 1: Break the Ice
Most tutors plan time to get to know a new student. However, a solid tutor-student relationship needs time to be maintained, too. Consider investing 8–10% of your session into connection time.
Connection time supports learning. Students who know you (and know you care) feel more comfortable and safe admitting when they’re struggling.
Check in with Julia (2 minutes)
Julia is a returning student, so you already know a little about her life and interests. Start with a friendly chat about her day, or follow up on the story she told you last week. (Yet another great reason to take session notes!)
Get to know Madison
(5 minutes)
You’ll assess skills for this first-session student later. Right now, get Madison talking with a few tutoring icebreaker questions.
Step 2: Warm Up & Recap
Shift your questions toward last week’s session or a new student’s existing strengths, concerns, and questions. A warm-up activity lets you quickly shift into teacher mode, activate students’ memory, and get them into a learning mindset. You can also use activities with a new student to assess skill level.
Consider using around 8–15% of your session for review activities and pre-tests.
Collect tutoring bell ringers, hooks, do-nows, and other engagement activities like a magpie. This selection of tutor warm-up activities for non-fiction reading has some gems that would also work for science, history, literature, writing, and many other subjects.
Engage Julia with a review game (5 minutes)
Julia is going to learn about the order of operations today. A warm-up flashcard activity focused on addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division will:
- Review last week’s session and create scaffolding for today’s lesson
- Open up the chance to ask questions
- Assess whether she’s ready to apply knowledge in a new way
- Help her reinforce skills and feel confident about moving on
Find Madison's strong and weak subjects (10 minutes)
Madison is a new student looking for SAT tutoring. To build a study plan, establish what she already knows about the test subjects:
- If Madison has already taken a practice test, walk through the results with her and identify topic and test-taking strengths and weaknesses.
- If she hasn’t taken a practice test, discuss her best and worst subjects in school and her comfort level with tests.
- Assign a few questions from a practice test to assess her current level.
3. Introduce the Session & Set Goals
Time to debut the topic of today’s lesson. Identify and state what you both want to achieve — is it understanding their homework assignment, scoring above 80% on a practice test, or learning to spell 10 new vocab words? Getting on the same page lets you aim for the same target. Plan to spend about 8-15% of your session on this step.
Tie this lesson to what they learned last time or what’s coming next. You make each session feel organized, clear, and purposeful by showing how today’s lesson connects with what students already know or want to know.
Introduce Julia to a key concept with an interactive activity (5 minutes)
Julia is a kinesthetic learner, so open your lesson about the order of operations with a movement activity that teaches the acronym PEMDAS.
- Assign each operation a movement, like a clap for Parentheses, a jumping jack for Exponents, etc.
- Say the operation, act out the movement, and have Julia repeat it.
- Speak and act out the operations in order together, trying to go faster and faster. A dance routine helps Julia remember PEMDAS by associating an action with each operation.
Help Madison set a study timeline that meets her goals (5 minutes)
Madison struggles with critical reading, so that will be your study focus. To help her identify study goals:
- Find out where she’s applying.
- Look up the reading scores she needs to qualify if she doesn’t already know.
- Check whether her schools superscore (i.e, use the best score from all attempts).
- Based on her practice scores, discuss a realistic study plan to get the results she needs in time for the big test.
- Set a goal score and session schedule together to encourage student buy-in.
4. Guided Practice & Teaching
This is your dedicated teaching time to explain today’s concept. Depending on your student and topic, you may discuss and model a process or support your student as they practice with an activity. Devote 33-50% of your tutoring session to this step.
Tailor your tutoring method to your student’s learning style. Not sure how they learn best? Try assigning a learning style quiz after your first session, then talk about the results during warm-up for the next session.
Model solving problems for Julia with counters (7 minutes)
- Show Julia practice problems that use PEMDAS.
- Model how to solve using a number line and counters. (Prep is key when working with teaching aids.)
- Start by having Julia say and act out the next operation as you solve, slowly transitioning into asking for the answer to each operation.
- Rather than lecturing, modeling with counters and a number line engages Julia’s preference to learn through touch, movement, and action.
Introduce the types of SAT reading questions for Madison (20 minutes)
- Lay out the four main SAT reading test topics and the 11 question types. Share a table with the question types summarized and color coordinated.
- Provide examples of the first five types of questions and discuss finding the solution together.
- Madison is a visual/auditory learner, so working from a table that organizes info visually helps her retain new ideas. Discussion and verbal collaboration also work well for her.
5. Student Practice & Support
If your student is following along with the new concept, give them a chance to work through it on their own. Act as a safety net for questions and watch to check their understanding.
Your goal for steps 4 and 5 is to move your student from observing to guided practice to independent practice along this framework:
I do, you watch.
I do, you help.
You do, I help.
You do, I watch.
How you distribute time between those goals for steps 4 and 5 varies depending on how quickly your student picks up the concept. In general, reserve about 25-33% of your tutoring session for student practice.
Support Julia as she practices with a number line and counters (6 minutes)
Complete the transition into independent practice time. Give Julia problems to solve on her own with the number line and counters. Answer questions when asked.
Support Madison as she practices question types (15 minutes)
Provide practice questions to hit the five SAT reading question types you practiced together. Ask Madison to:
- Identify the type of question
- Talk through the process of solving it
- Refer to the table as often as needed
- Ask questions if she gets stuck
- Transition slowly to an independent online practice test as she gains confidence
6. Wrap-Up & Assess
This is your chance to engage students with the material one last time. Use a mini quiz or activity to gauge where their understanding is solid and what to review next time. Did they nail their practice? Reward them with a quick game. Aim to leave 8-15% of your time to review and wrap up.
Tutors who struggle with time management tend to skip the wrap-up. Don’t! Structuring your lesson to leave time for assessment ensures you don’t move on too quickly. Wrap-ups also let you celebrate little victories, so students leave feeling positive and confident.
Assess Julia’s ability to solve a problem without counters (5 minutes)
- Since Julia may not have access to counters in class, she should be able to solve equations without them.
- Ask her to draw on a number line instead to solve a problem.
- Assess whether Julia understood the concept well enough to solve her homework problems without counters.
- Answer any questions about the homework, and end the session.
Gauge Madison’s understanding and assign practice (5 minutes)
- Chat with Madison about which of today’s question types were easiest and hardest.
- For next time, assign a practice test for one of the question types she struggles with.
- Preview your next session, where you’ll focus on this question type and build connections to similar ones.
- Share links to more study resources, and end the session.
Plan & Tutor With Confidence
With a tutoring lesson plan template, you’re ready to feel prepared and help students succeed. For our wrap-up and review, let’s address a few common questions about how to structure a tutoring session.
Structured Lesson Tips for Tutors: FAQs
What are some pre-session prep tips for tutoring?
Tutoring jobs offer different opportunities for prep depending on where and how you work. A walk-in learning center usually means you’re working on the fly, while many online tutoring platforms ask every student to provide session goals and book in advance.
Here are some tutoring tips to prepare for a session ahead of time:
- Gather info. If possible, send a welcome message to students who book a session. Ask what they’d like to focus on or direct them to fill out a form. Recon lets you customize your study plan ahead of time so you go into your session with a clear strategy.
- Review last week’s notes. For returning students, jot down some thoughts post-session on what you covered, what went well, and what needs practice while it’s fresh in your mind. Notes jog your memory and make planning the next review activity easier.
- Match learning goals to standards. For K–12 students, consider jotting down which state educational standards your lesson supports. This helps you reinforce what’s happening in the classroom (and justify and document your teaching strategy if you deal with a dissatisfied parent).
- Collect icebreakers and activities. You never know when a session will run short, an activity will flop, or your student will be especially distracted. Having a few adaptable learning games in your back pocket lets you smoothly switch gears.
- Set up your work area and supplies. Gather your worksheets and teaching aids or test your internet connection and pull up relevant links for online learning.
- Don’t forget tutor insurance. Before your first session, get covered for the risks of being responsible for students’ safety and learning. Not sure if you need insurance? Our private tutor insurance guide explains how to protect your online tutoring, in-home tutoring, and more.
How can I keep students engaged and motivated?
- Take breaks. Account for the average attention span by age when planning lessons. Active breaks like walking around the room or squeezing a stress ball can be beneficial for kinesthetic learners. Even a change in learning activity could work. Rest from practice problems for a few minutes by demoing a helpful study tool.
- Use interactive tech. Edtech tools can give online tutoring students an engaging session (though your in-person students might like them, too). Introducing flashcard apps like Quizlet or learning game platforms like Kahoot! teaches students how to game-ify studying outside of sessions.
- Limit distractions. A lot about a student’s physical tutoring space may be out of your control, especially for online students. What you can control is your space and actions. Limit background noise and movement, and avoid checking your watch or phone too frequently. If you’re focused and engaged, they’re more likely to be, too.
How can I manage time effectively during a tutoring session?
- Come prepared. Structure your lesson into manageable chunks and plan activities ahead of time. Gathering all your resources, examples, and practice problems before the session also reduces transition time between activities.
- Plan for pace. Set length goals in minutes for each step of your structured lesson, and add the time each step should be finished to your lesson plan. Keep a clock in view to stay on target, especially when starting out. The more you tutor, the more you’ll develop a feeling for when it’s time to move on.
- Prioritize tasks. If you’re worried about going over time, highlight the must-do steps and consider which you could shorten or combine for a few extra minutes if you need to.
How do I end a tutoring session?
- Save time for your wrap-up or assessment. Leave some time for questions that your quiz or activity knocked loose.
- Make sure your student knows what to do between sessions. Discuss their homework or assign practice problems for them to bring back next week.
- Sign off with a goodbye and some final encouragement. Students who end their sessions feeling good about themselves are more likely to come to the next session ready to learn.
What should always be kept after each tutoring session?
- Notes: Choose a post-session notetaking system that fits you and stay consistent. Apps like Evernote or even a folder in Google Drive can make your notes accessible and searchable if you’re trying to remember a specific date or activity.
- Lesson plans: You’ll likely have another student covering the same topic later, so existing lesson plans can reduce your prep time to just a few minutes for customizing activities.
How do I start a tutoring business?
While starting a tutoring business from home can feel intimidating, it breaks down into a few key steps:
- Decide your tutoring specialty (for example, grade level, subject, and type of learner)
- Get any required certifications or licenses
- Register your business with your state and federal government
- Set up a business bank account
- Buy tutor insurance
- Choose your tutoring pricing and session packages
- Invest in the right materials and equipment (software, streaming tech, workbooks, etc)
- Advertise your tutoring services and find your first students
Not ready for a full-time private tutoring business yet? Start by tutoring as a side gig.
