Step one: find the edge
Nothing useful happens until we know what is already understood. So the first question is diagnostic rather than instructional — If this question appeared on the exam in a different form, would you still recognise it?
An answer of "I don't know" is a perfectly good answer here. It is information, and it narrows the search immediately.
Step two: test the reasoning, not the answer
A right answer and a lucky answer look identical. The second question separates them: Which step in your working are you least able to justify?
This is the step most tutoring skips, and it is the one that decides whether anything transfers to the next problem.
Step three: work it aloud
Understanding gets built by closing the book and reconstructing the argument from memory, then checking only what failed. Saying reasoning out loud exposes the gaps that silent reading hides — including to the person doing the reasoning.
Where a step cannot be justified, that is the step to work on. Everything else can wait.
Step four: check it held
The same idea is returned to later in an unfamiliar form. If it survives that, it was understood; if it does not, we know precisely where it broke.
Across problem sets and academic writing alike, this is the step that turns a good session into a durable one.
What you should notice
After a few sessions the change worth watching for is the student can predict which part of a question is the trap.
At that point a student is running the method rather than receiving it, which is the whole intention.