A student will learn from an adult who he respects. Therefore, spend some time each session discussing the student's likes and interests outside of school, and the tutor should share as well. All of this talking shouldn't take place just at the beginning of the session, but rather throughout the hour. A session that is all business will quickly become impersonal to the student and he will be more likely to be bored and unengaged.
A tutoring session is not unlike a classroom lesson. Come prepared for the lesson. Know what you will be teaching and what the child will need. Know the material and be ready to answer questions and delve deep into a topic. For example, if a child is reading a book for English class, read the book before the tutoring sessions, so the lesson can be directed to help the student understand general themes and plot. Hometutors.org explains that being prepared and planning for the lessons can be a key to a tutor's success.
Often, a child is being tutored because she needs a new way of understanding difficult material. This may mean using many learning styles in the tutoring session such as kinesthetic (learning through movement), auditory (learning through listening and responding), and tactile (learning through touch). A tutoring session doesn't have to mean that both student and tutor sit at a table for an hour. Movement can be very key in understanding material, and manipulatives and imaginative lessons can help as well. Howard Gardner, the educator who identified multiple intelligences, argued that using multiple intelligences in an education setting can only promote understanding.