Lisa

**10/6/2010**
==== I am just getting starter on the wiki. Last week I had a really successful tutoring session. My students is in fifth grade and very personable. We did some introduction activities to get to know each other a little better. I took the reading inventory worksheets from the packet, and another reading inventory I had from my C&I 209 class. I actually did the worksheets with her and filled a sheet out for myself, so we were both working and writing answers/discussing together. We ended our session with reading from a chapter book that is one of my favorites for young students “Miss Daisy is Crazy.” I read the book aloud and paused to ask my student questions. She has a lot of energy and the hour was a little long for her to sit the whole time, so next week we may try to take a break midway through and take a walk to get a drink. ==== ==== My student had informed me that she spends a lot of time at home on the computer and watching youtube videos. I think the next session I will try to research some online educational websites that she can work on at home. I will also be doing a running record. I am going to bring a couple long picture books, because even though she is in fifth grade through our reading inventory I think she may be below reading levels. ====

Hi Lisa,
====I enjoyed reading that you two worked collectively in getting to know one another. The child I am tutoring was rather reluctant to communicate during our first tutoring session, so I began by telling her about me. She soon came out of her shell. Yes, I would recommend taking a bit of a walk to the water fountain break. An hour is a long time-regardless of the activity taking place for a fifth grader to sit. ====

(Sorry this is late, but I had trouble logging in to wikispaces because I forgot my password! SORRY)
==== LeeLanda and I had a very productive tutoring session. We worked together at the beginning of our session doing our first Running Record. I picked a story that was at a 2.3 reading level (LeeLanda is in fifth grade.) She did okay but was a very hesitant reader and not very fluent. There were only a few self corrections and a few words where she substituted other words that did have the same context. She was in the 88% range of reading the text which I was surprised that I chose a semi appropriate text for her to do a Running Record for the first time. We then worked together reading another story and worked with making predictions. We read __A Bad Case of Stripes__ and I read the majority of the story and I asked LeeLanda to read short exerts that I thought were appropriate and would not frustrate LeeLanda. About half way through the story we stopped reading and I asked her to make some predictions about what she thought would happen at the end of the story. LeeLanda had mentioned in our previous session that she loved to color and draw so I had her draw her prediction and then write at least two sentences about her drawing. LeeLanda really enjoyed this activity, but did become a little restless towards the end of our time together. She did mention at one point that she just wished we could play a game and not read J I realize that LeeLanda is a reluctant reader and gets tired from reading and very frustrated. I did gain a lot of information about her reading through the last two sessions and I think next session I should be able to spice it up a little bit more. ==== ==== I did not use the laptops…Mallory was sick so I really didn’t know how to go about getting them out and getting them started. I am going to come at 5:00 on Wednesday so I can make sure I get the laptops out and we can do something that is maybe more fun for LeeLanda. ====

** 10-20-2010 **
====Today LeeLanda began our tutoring session with finishing our book we started last week and made predictions for. She remembered the text and was surprised about the ending. Her response was reassuring that this was a good activity and I think it helped a lot with LeeLanda checking her comprehension skills.====

====I then had a stack of note cards with some site words on them that I have recorded from our last two sessions. These words are words that she missed during her running record and were words that she got held up on during our reading inventory quizzes on the first day. We went through them and she would first say the word then I would tell her what the annunciation actually was. Then we went through all of the words again and I told her she could take the note cards home with her. She is going to leave them in her backpack and study them when she thinks about it (she does not have to study them at all it is just for fun site words she needs to practice.) Every time we come across another word we will add them to the stack of note cards, so hopefully by the end of our tutoring sessions she will have a pile of site words she can work on at home.====

====LeeLanda then began reading and Amelia Bedelia book. She had told be these are her favorite books so we are going to try and read a few and do some comprehension and extension activities with them each week. We just read the Amelia Bedelia book this week because I had other activities planned.====

====We then worked together on the laptop. I had several sites that I wanted to show LeeLanda that had fun learning games. We only go through one of the websites before time was up so we have a lot of fun things we can do next week. I gave her a printout of all the websites I found so she can access them at home.====

====LeeLanda had a book from the library that was a LONG chapter book that she was reluctant to read. I had told her that next time she went to the library to ask the librarian for help picking out a book. She did and she brought back a Frog and Toad book which is much more appropriate for her reading level J ====

====We are working from 4:30-5:30 now. I had emailed you and asked if that was okay and you gave me the go ahead. Just making sure you knew because Mallory didn’t get the memo and thought we were still working at 5:30. THANKS====


 * 10-27-2010**
 * LeeLanda’s mom had mentioned that she had problems with comprehension. Throughout our sessions I have noticed her struggle with comprehension, but mainly because she is a struggling reader. She tries to rush through the sentences and she often times skips words and she does not take the time to understand the meaning of what she is reading. I think this is mainly because at her school she is working on fluency with her reading teacher and she has a time goal to meet every week. When she is reading with me though I am trying to get her to take her time and sound out the words. I also want her to SLOW down so she understands what she is reading.**

Hi Lisa, I feel your pain when reading about the tug of war between fluency and comprehension. I worked with a first grader yesterday who is required to know a certain amount of sight words in order to progress to the second grade. He is VERY proud of these flash cards and has increased his sight word vocabulary since the beginning of his tutoring, where he barely knew any words. Last night he was flipping through the cards faster than he could recall the words, and you could see the frenetic shuffle as he was going through the cards. I saw a first grade student who was stressed. In fact, I became stressed myself. ;)

Please share with me your tactics for slowing down her reading. I am doing so my shared reading with me modeling a good pace. Also, as she reads and does so at a much more manageable pace, I compliment her on how nicely she read.

Thanks! Natalie

I began this session with reading a Frog and Toad book to LeeLanda. After we read the story we did a story map to help check comprehension. LeeLanda was able to successfully fill out the chart with little difficulty. Next I have LeeLanda read her own Frog and Toad story. Afterwards we filled out a story map together. She was able to list the main characters, but needed assistance with the solution to the problem and the setting of the story. LeeLanda then read another Frog and Toad story and afterwards she finished the story map on her own. I did not assist her at all besides asking provoking thought process questions. She did have to look at the book for some assistance, but she was getting better then the previous 2 stories.

After we did the story maps we went through the 2 books to go over some words that she had trouble pronunciations and sounding out. We added those words to her note card of words to practice at home or anytime she has time. We went through the whole stack of words and she did improve from the week before.

She did ask again if we could use the computers, so I am going to try hard the next session to split the session between reading without the computer and then maybe playing some games on the computer!

LeeLanda is improving and it makes me so happy J 11/3/10

Today LeeLanda and I worked on the computer the entire time. We were working on Brainpop. This is a website that you have to pay for but they have short “funny” educational videos and short quizzes and games to go with it. My mom’s school has a subscription to the Brainpop website and as a teacher she is able to access it at home and share it with her family and friends. I was able to login successfully and access some really great things for LeeLanda. I prepared before coming to our tutoring session by watching all the videos I wanted to show, and making sure all of the stories/questions made sense with the quizzes and so forth. I have learned that it is important while using technology to “test” it out before using it with students just in case something goes wrong.

We working on literary terms and applying them to the stories. This was great because there was a short 2 minute video discussing comprehension, setting, summaries, and themes of a story. Then LeeLanda had to read a short story without the video. Then at the end she was able to take a quiz that had questions about the literary elements and about the story. This was awesome because LeeLanda loves being on the computer but struggles a lot with her comprehension, so she actually had fun doing what we were doing J

We only got through 2 stories and videos with her taking the quiz. The first one she struggled with some of the questions just because she was trying to go through them too quickly I think, but the second story I made her take her time and really reread and slow down while taking the quiz. For the last 5 minutes I let her watch any video she wanted and plays a word finding game. The word finding game she picked was for the 6th grade level, but she did really well. I have noticed she is becoming less of a reluctant reader and not as frustrated when she stumbles on a word she does not know.

11/17/10

LeeLanda and I really got down to business today. We decided to start reading a chapter book and go through it chapter by chapter to make sure she understood what was going on. I read the first 3 chapters of our book before our tutoring session. For each chapter I had 3-5 written questions on a piece of paper for LeeLanda to answer.

When she began reading she was reading really fast and skipping/changing words. She would read “his” instead of “the” or “a” instead of “with.” None of the substitutions really changed the meaning of the text, but LeeLanda makes the substitutions all the time. I try not to point it out every time but with her still making these substitutions I decided to stop her and go over a few things. I reassured her that she is not reading for speed and she has questions to answer after each chapter. I pointed out the words that she unconsciously changed while reading, and why it was important that she tries hard to read what is on the page. For incentive…I told LeeLanda that if she read the first chapter at a steady pace sounding out reading all the words, and answered all the questions correctly that she would not have to write the questions out for the next two chapters and I would bring her a small treat next time.

LeeLanda began to read at a better pace and actually sounding out some words instead of just guessing what she thought it may be. She still had some of substitutions, which needs to be addressed in another way.

Her comprehension was GREAT. She was asking questions while reading the text and asking me questions about the text. She was able to answer all of my questions about the chapters with great detail and extended responses.

We had a good session and she chose to have skittles as a treat our next session!

12/1/10

Today we did another comprehension activity. We were reading short stories today so LeeLanda would be able to get back in to the swing of things easily. We read nonfiction today which is something we have never done. I thought this would be appropriate because LeeLanda is in fifth grade and always talks about Science and Social Studies readings she has. Anything that is nonfiction or from a text book can sometimes be more difficult for a lot of students especially struggling readers. We used a KWL chart to work with our first book. LeeLanda said she had never used one of these which is shocking to me, and I a sure she has at some point in her like and probably just does not remember.

We first went over some questions that we wanted to find out and know by the time we finished reading the text. I filled out a KWL chart with her so it was like we were working together and both working to achieve the same goal. I have found when tutoring this helps a lot. We then read through the text going through page by page. LeeLanda would read one page and then I would read the next. I took notes on the pages LeeLanda read and she took notes on what I read. This was obviously very time consuming but I think helped LeeLanda reading/listening to the nonfiction text.

When we finished we learned A LOT! We ran out of time to finish the chart but LeeLanda was going to take it home and work on it. And she mentioned she was going to use this while she read her Social Studies homework tonight YAY J

Next week we will do a running record.