A tutor is someone who teaches another person, usually one-on-one or in a very small group. Unlike classroom teachers who work with twenty or thirty students at once, a tutor focuses their attention on just one or a few students at a time. This allows them to explain things in exactly the way that particular student needs to hear them.

Students work with tutors for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes a student needs extra help understanding fractions or grammar rules. Sometimes a student wants to get even better at something they already do well, like preparing for a challenging test or learning advanced chess strategies. Athletes have coaches who work with them individually; tutoring is similar, but for academic subjects.

Parents, older siblings, classmates, or professional teachers can all serve as tutors. The key is that personalized attention: if you're struggling with long division, your tutor can watch exactly where you get confused and try different explanations until something clicks. If you're working ahead in reading, your tutor can challenge you with harder books and deeper questions than your regular class covers.

As a verb, to tutor means to teach someone in this focused, personal way.

A good tutor looks out for your learning, making sure you truly understand rather than just memorizing answers.