Tutoring Session #3

        Today was yet another great day. I am always impressed with the work that the child puts forward each week. She worked really hard on her math worksheets while I reviewed her homework from the previous week. She really enjoys math topics. She did have a little trouble counting some money. I made sure to give her a few word problems that deal with money for homework this week.

        After we reviewed her math worksheets we started working on her summer reading project. Last week we had answered questions on the book to get her thinking about the question at hand. This week, we worked on summarizing the book. Not every teacher will have read every book, so a summary is a great place to start. We almost completed the summary portion of her project. I hope to work on the first bullet point, and possibly the second one, when she returns after vacation.

        During this writing time, I had to prompt the student for several sentences. Starting them can be hard, so it was not a horrible thing. The problem arose when I would ask her what happened next, and she couldn’t quite tell me. I will try to help her differentiate between main ideas, and details. She knew the story well. I am happy she is still reading it.

We have not read a fiction book together during our session for two weeks. This week we did not read a non-fiction book out loud either. I apologize for that, however, we have been going back to the text of Belinda the Ballerina often for the project. She has 5 books with her- Belinda the Ballerina (F), Jamaica (NF), G is for Garden (NF-Picture Book), The Blind Men and the Elephant (F-Level K), and The Reluctant Flower Girl (F).

I look forward to seeing her work from this week, and to hearing about her wonderful time in Jamaica.   

        I am very excited for all of the progress she is making so far.

Tutoring Summary # 2

Yesterday was my second tutoring session. I really enjoyed working with her. She is always enthusiastic when it comes to working on her math, even though she struggles a little with subtraction at this point in time. We worked on her summer reading question:

"The main character in your FICTION story is very important; but many times there is another character in the story who is also important to that main character and the story itself.

• Choose a character who is NOT the main character and explain why he/she is important to the story. 
• Write about how this story might be different if this character was not included in the book."

To me, it seems a bit hard for an almost third grader to grasp, but we did our best. I had her answer some questions about it. We can worry about putting it all together soon. We read through the one new non-fiction book on Christopher Columbus but we did not get to read the new fiction book-The Puppy Who Wanted a Boy. She will work on those for next week. 

She said something really profound yesterday:

"It doesn't matter what others think of you, it only matters what you think of yourself."

It's something I have to keep in mind as I keep going on through the weeks ahead. =)

Tutoring Summary # 1

About 3 weeks ago I was at the school I did my student teaching in. I stopped by my co-op's classroom to say hello. During our conversation, she offered me a tutoring position with one of the student's I had taught. The mother had asked for a tutor to help her daughter stay on reading level throughout the summer. I was very excited for the opportunity and jumped at it. I spoke with the mother and with my co-op to gather ideas of what to focus on during our sessions.

On Monday, July 1, 2013 I had my first tutoring session. It lasted 2 hours. We focused on math and reading.  I will also do some writing with her.

Before we began learning I showed and explained all that I had for her. She has a writing journal in which I would like for her to write in daily. It can be a letter to me, a story she makes up or a description of what she has done during the day. I showed her the reading folder she has, her homework folder and her reading journal too.  Then I gave her the option of whether to start with math or reading.

When she said math, I was able to assess where she needs the most help. I gave her two timed math fact pre-tests. These were only using the numbers 1-10. The first one was an addition paper. The second one was a subtraction paper. After that I gave her another “pre-test” with a variety of math topics learned in 2^nd grade, such as time, money, and comparing numbers/fractions. 

We then did some reading. She picked out a book for summer reading. I also picked out a non-fiction book for her to read. It was a biography on Harriet Tubman. Then we read another fiction book called Jamaica's Find. We also worked on some sight words. It was a great time and I am excited to see her progress. =)