Sara's+Page

=2/15/11=

I met with my tutoring student this past week (2/15) for the first time. I'm uploading this almost a week late because I thought I had joined the wiki but didn't! My student's name is Kadin and he is 7 years old and in 1st grade. I was excited that he was so talkative with me even though we had just met. For our first day, Kadin and I got to know each other. I read him an //All About Me// book that I had made for my C&I 209 class. It gave Kadin some information about me about my favorite sports teams, where I live, and my family. Kadin and I discussed my book while I was reading it and I was asking him questions about his likes and dislikes. I gave Kadin the “News About Me” interest inventory and found out a lot of information about him. Kadin really likes sports and wants to be a ref when he grows up. Kadin told me that he doesn’t like reading in his spare time and thinks he isn’t a good reader. He doesn’t feel that reading is rewarding to him or that reading is fun. I hope that throughout this semester, I can find books that interest Kadin so he starts to enjoy reading. “ Kadin and I worked on some sight word flashcards so I could get a feel for words he knows and words he doesn’t know yet. He had a lot of words in his “I don’t know” pile. Throughout this semester, I want to work on sight words as well. Overall, our first time meeting each other went very well!

=2/23/11=

This week for tutoring, I started by giving Kadin an alphabet assessment. I got the assessment from the //Improving Reading// book for my C&I 209 class. The assessment has both capital and lowercase letters. Kadin did really good on the assessment. He mixed up his P’s and Q’s and his b’s and d’s. Kadin didn’t know the difference between a capital and lowercase letters. He thought the capital letters were the lowercase letters and the lowercase letters were the capital letters. I tried to give Kadin a sight word list and have him read it, but he seemed very frustrated. We took a break and played “I Spy.” I picked up a book from the library called //I Spy// and I thought it would be a good motivator. Kadin and I took turns reading the //I Spy// book. I noticed that Kadin gets frustrated really easily with words. He sounds out everything and I realized a lot of the times that doesn’t work. I hope I can make a lesson for Kadin to give him different ways to try to figure out words. I did a running record with Kadin. It didn’t go too well. I took the running records from the //Basic Reading Inventory//, also from my C&I 209 class, and started with the Kindergarten level. Kadin didn’t know a lot of the words. I tried to give him the first grade reading passage and he was too frustrated so we stopped. Kadin fought me a lot on reading so I hope that I can find books that interest him to read!

=3/3/11= This week for tutoring was very frustrating. The past two sessions, I’ve tried to do an activity then some sort of game to keep Kadin’s interest since an hour of tutoring is a long time. Kadin only wanted to play games this session and became really frustrated. We weren’t in our usual room because there were no keys and I think Kadin was a little thrown off being in a different environment. Kadin and I got nothing accomplished. He was very frustrated and cried the whole time. I tried to do different activities but he wanted nothing to do with it. When Kadin’s mom picked him up, she told me that when Kadin becomes really frustrated, he just shuts down and doesn’t want to do anything. She also told me that Kadin is at a kindergarten level for reading, if not lower than that. Hopefully next times go better than this time!!

=3/16/11= Kadin could not meet this week.

=3/23/11= Kadin was on spring break so we did not meet again.

=3/30/11=

This was the first week that I met with Kadin since our spring break. Since the last time we met didn’t go too well, I was a little nervous as to how our tutoring time was going to go this week. I started off by having Kadin draw me a picture of what he did over his spring break and write a sentence to describe the picture. Next, we read the book Click, Clack, Quackity-Quack by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin. This book is an alphabet book. Kadin needed help with the words but would repeat them after me. I had him go to the board and think of 3 words that start with the letter that we just read. Kadin didn’t know how to spell a lot of the words but he knew what they started with which I thought was a good thing. Before moving on to the next letter, I had Kadin read the words he put on the board and repeat the words in the book. Eventually, he started to recognize the words which we were both really excited about. We did about half the book and moved on because I could tell that Kadin was getting bored. We read the book, Maybe a Bear Ate It! By Robie H. Harris. Kadin then created his own picture that said “Maybe a Ate It!” This tutoring time was a lot more successful than the last one!

=4/6/11= Kadin could not meet this week.

=4/13/11= Tutoring went very well today. I brought Kadin a snack so we started off very well! Kadin read the book, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, all by himself! I was really excited for him. He needed help with some of the words but he did the majority by himself. Before we read the story, I asked Kadin for three things he thought a pig would do if you gave it a pancake. After Kadin read, we revisited these ideas to see if his ideas matched what happened in the book. Kadin did not have any ideas that happened in the book so I asked him to tell me three things that actually did happen in the book to work on his comprehension. Next, we read a Dr. Seuss book and worked on opposites.

=4/20/11= Today was our last session. I gave Kadin a running record assessment.Last time, Kadin was very frustrated with the first grade running record last time, so I started with a pre-primer assessment. Kadin did fairly well and only skipped a couple words. He made a few substitutes while reading but was successful at figuring out words that he did not know. I tried to give Kadin the first grade running record again but he was still too frustrated with it. Kadin and I read a couple books together and colored pictures that went along with the book. Tutoring this semester has opened my eyes to what it's like to be a real teacher and finding different ways to try to teach a student a concept. I learned that patience is a virtue. I'm definitely going to miss Kadin and our time spent together!