What a good reading session actually looks like.

A good reading session does not look impressive from across the room. There are no flashcards flying, no timer beeping. Mostly a child is reading, and an adult is listening, and the adult is making careful mental notes.

I'm listening for three things. Are the sounds and blends in place? Is the pacing natural, or chopped up? And when I stop and ask a question about what we just read, can the student tell me back what happened?

Each of those three signals points to a different kind of work. Sound and blend issues mean phonics. Choppy pacing means fluency practice. Comprehension gaps mean we slow down and build the habit of asking what the words mean as we go.

If a reading tutor is mostly talking, mostly drilling, mostly racing through a worksheet, that's not the work. The work is quieter than that, and it builds something that lasts.