I took the plunge and have volunteered to be a literacy tutor. I actually tried to volunteer at our local schools, but no one wanted me. 
I don’t take it personally, I think they’re just so inefficient they don’t know how to utilize tutors. Plus they found it very suspicious I didn’t have kids in the school. They’re in their 20’s now!
It’s a little further away than I want, but it’s in an area with higher illiteracy rates than my area. I go for training at the end of the month, and I have a homework packet to work on. I will tutor an adult (or several people I suppose) for one hour a week.
I’ve never taught anyone formally before. I chose this as a volunteer activity because of my passion and belief that education is really empowering and freeing.
I’m wondering if anyone has experience with tutoring adults, and any tips you could share.
Good for you. Without a certain degree of literacy life is very hard. It’s never too late for someone to learn to read/read better.
I’ve worked the last nearly 20 years in pediatric literacy - parents who have poor literacy skills have difficulty raising children with good literacy skills. You can help break the cycle!
Tips:
Celebrate small wins for your student - not just final goals.
Let them know ways you have struggle in life or needed to reach for help to learn something - you don’t have to reveal personal stuff but let them know most people struggle in one area or another.
Be positive. Be bright. Be a good listener. Start and end every session on a positive note.
Ask if they had any favorite stories/books as a child. These books can be sometimes used in your read aloud sessions.
If they have children, encourage them to use books with them - even if they just look and talk about the pictures. It’s a way to get comfortable around books. Offer to help them get wordless books if needed.
Interesting that your local schools didn’t want a tutor - our schools have a tutoring coordinator whose job is to oversee the volunteer tutors. Good for you, OP.
Local schools may not want untrained volunteers. A friend adores the time she spends on this. Her student is 45, eager and progressing. It brings her joy.
I love that you are volunteering in this way. Our family is a big game-playing family and my mom was the supreme game player all of her life. She now has advanced dementia and still plays Scrabble, Boggle, and Sorry daily with her spouse and–for the past 14 months–with her caregiver who is from Kenya. The caregiver has dramatically improved her vocabulary and can now beat almost everyone in our family. She loves playing games, not only to improve word recall, but also because it encourages conversation with other players. Playing word games (matching games and a host of kinds in addition to the ones I mentioned) might be great, fun activity to end each session with–regardless of the age group you are working with. Good Luck!
My sister, who is 76 and certainly has no children in any school system, is a volunteer literacy tutor for a couple of youg kids in a school near her. Neither of the kids is native-born so they are trying to learn English at the same time they are learning to read. She finds it very rewarding.
I taught English as a Second Language as a volunteer for two years and found it very interesting. The students needed vocabulary – lots and lots of vocabulary. They knew how to say “beautiful,” for example, but didn’t know the words pretty, attractive, gorgeous, and so forth, so they felt they were limited. I finally quit because a couple of the students were very demanding and exhausting. But I felt a rush after every class, when I realized that the students left with more than they came in with.
For my ESL students, I recommended that they read a children’s book – not the real baby ones, but ones with simple language, such as the Little House on the Prairie books – at the same time that they listened to it on tape (or disk or whatever). Taking it in both visually and aurally can help many people learn faster.