Valerie's+Page

Wednesday April 27, 2011
Today we re-read I am a cat. Jake has practiced this book at home and he is doing surprisingly well. I mixed up the pages and had him read the words, I did this to see if he had memorized the book. He was able to identify most of the words in the book and he is starting to read with some fluency. We focused sometime on G, B, D and he did a great job coming up with words that fit each letter with less mix-ups than previously. We are doing one more session next Tuesday.

**Wednesday April 20, 2011 **  **This week Jake and I completed the word wall. We focused on the letters Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. Jake and I also did a word exploration and I have him the opportunity to write down every work he knew how to spell. In 5 minutes he wrote down about 7 words, cat, ball, Jake, dad, hop, and a few others. He needed help with some words, but for the most part he is doing really well figuring out how to spell. I had him focus on prefixes and we read through many books from the prefix basket. He did really well once he noticed a pattern. I covered the pictures and had him look at the word first and make a good guess if he did not know. He has little practice with phonics and so we practiced some phonetic sounds.**



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Wednesday April 13, 2011
This week I did the same thing as the week before but we added I_J_K_L_M_N_O_P. Jake did a great job of picking a letter and just naming off as many words as he could. We started with J, jump, Jake, juice...it was amazing he just thought of a ton with out me even prompting him to think hard. We also read some books about cats. HE READ A SENTENCE TO ME WITH OUT ME EVEN TELLING HIM WHAT IT SAID FIRST. It was great, he is going to be reading books by himself soon. The book was called __I Am A Cat.__ He opened the book and said I am a cat. In the back of my mind I thought that maybe he just guessed what the words were because the picture was a cat. I put my finger on the words right to left and he was able to tell me what each word said. It was so exciting. We read the rest of the book together and I asked him to read certain words. He learned the word and and whenever and came up in the book I stopped reading and he inserted and....the best part is, since he was following along, sometimes he said and as I was finishing the words before, I did not even have a chance to pause, he was genuinely excited about being able to read a few words in a book all by himself. . I let his dad barrow the three books we read together in class and Jake promised me he was going to practice reading at home. I am excited to see if he is able to read the books for me next week :)

Wednesday April 6, 2011
Jake and I created a word wall of all the words he knows that start with the letters A-H. I taped up an Alphabet strip on the white board. and we started with A. He came up with so many words for each letter I was so proud of him. On index cards we each wrote out the word and then drew a picture to help him remember. He also learned a few new words this week including hat, hop, bat, ball, cat. I really tried to get him to notice that hat, cat, and bat all ended with at. As soon as he realized, he easily began recalling the words when I would write them down instead of trying to sound the whole word out. It was so exciting.

Hi Valerie,

I've really enjoyed reading your posts and following along with Jake's progress. He has really made progress since I first met him back in August. Just by observing your sessions when in the Borg Center, it has become apparent that he has taken to you. This is great! He seems to display a short attention span, yet you are compensating for this by planning for a wide variety of literacy activities. Even though Dr. Seuss may seem cliche' to some, I think his books are fantastic for helping build fluency, and as demonstrated with Jake's recall, comprehension. Dick and Jane books (yes, I know-antiquated) and Dr. Seuss assisted in my literacy as a child. There is a website you may want to check out with lots of engaging, fun learning activities. http://www.seussville.com As we only have two weeks left for tutoring, he could also use this site at home.

His parents are very eager for him to learn, so it is great that you are communicating his gains with them. I am delighted to hear that his learning is also being encouraged and facilitated at home. Home literacy is such an important part of student achievement.

Thanks for all you have done in helping facilitate Jake's learning. Keep up the great work.

Best, Natalie =Wednesday March 30, 2011= Jake and I played a matching game for the first 15 minutes of the session. I printed out cards with words that start with A-Z. I also made cards with different forms of print for each letter and had Jake identify which letter was shown on the cards. Then I spread out the letter cards and I randomly pulled out the picture cards and had Jake spell the word of the picture (apple, dog, cat, egg, fish, grape..ect) and then proceed to match the picture to the card with the letter it belonged to. Jake did well, he was unable to determine B and D even though he was able to see the capital form of the letter. Jake and I then made 3 posters and on those posters we focused one on D, one on B and one on G. On this poster I had large letter gG,bB,dD, copied from the internet in color and cut out. Then together we came up with as many words starting with those letters as possible. I had him trace the large cut out letters in lowercase and uppercase form. I had him write out the words Ball, ball, Big and Big , Boy and boy and a few other words as well. I had him do the same for each poster just using different words that matched the letters. Finally on sentence strips I wrote B b and I had Jake copy B and b. Even looking at an example he still struggled not to make a d. We practiced b and d the most. I had him try a few times on his own and when he got discouraged I wrote out the letter in dots and had him connect the dots. He really enjoyed connecting the dots and he was able to get practice writing and saying the letter out loud. We continued to practice writing the letters the correct direction and we also talked about more words we know that start with the particular letter we were working on = = =Wednesday March 23, 2011﻿= During this session Jake and I read The Lorax. He previously had read the book and it was great to see him try and remember what had occurred in the text before we even read. Also, Jake was able to demonstrate that he comprehended the text. He was able to recall different events that took place in the story and also why these events took place. We also practiced writing D d, B b, and G g. He commonly gets these letters confused and after some practice he was able to identify them and write them a lot better than he was prior to the session! I made him word flash cards and we made up a snap rhyme so he could remember how to spell them. It went like this, snap snap A _ N _ D spells and snap snap AND. He enjoyed this for a few words and then he lost interest, BUT when I was walking him to the elevator he was able to recall how to spell AND, HIM, AM and HIS. It will be interesting to see if he remembers these words the next time we meet. Jakes parents are great and I gave them the alphabet chart I made the previous session, Jake was proud when he came this session and told me that he practiced the alphabet, he did much better reciting the letters in order, not perfect just yet, but he did make some improvement! =﻿= =Wednesday March 16, 2011=

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During this session Jake and I practiced the alphabet. He had difficulty remembering the order that some of the letters went in. I wrote out the alphabet on sentance strips and Jake and I took turns reading the letters out loud. We sang the ABC song slowly together. He wrote out the alphabet for me and I discovered that he has difficultly writing some letters the correct way. I mentioned that to his dad and he said that he was aware and they were working on it with him at home as well. I asked Jake to write as many words as he knew how to spell on the white board and he did a pretty good job writing neatly for me. He wrote his name, cat, red, I, and me.====== = = =Wednesday March 2, 2011=

During this session with Jake we worked on reading comprehension. First, I read him a story called Dog Breath, and I asked him to draw me a picture of two events that took place. Jake struggled with this and was unable to remember two different interesting things that took place, because of this we went through one or two pages at a time and made a cartoon diagram. I divided a paper into 9 boxes and I asked Jake to draw me a picture when a new event took place in the book. At the very end I asked him to recap for me what took place in the story. He was able to explain for the most part the main events in the story. We practiced words that start with the letters G, J, K, N. We concluded the session by reading Dog Breath together! = = = = = = = = = = = = =Wednesday February 23, 2011=

During this session with Jake, I was able to work with him without him feeling too frusterated. Natalie began the session by testing Jake on his comprehension. Jake and I went to the computer lab and we went onto http://pbskids.org/sesame/games/cookieLetterOfDay.html. This game was great for Jake because he had to opportunity to tell me what the letter was, what the words under the cookie picture said, and also I asked him while he was playing what sound each letter made. This gave him to opportunity to practice the alphabet out of order. He seems to have difficulty remembering letters when they are not in alphabetical order. Natalie was unable to test him on the letters and sounds and we had discussed that next Wednesday I will be assessing him. We played on the computer for about 10 minutes and then I gave Jake the opportunity to pick out a book and read with me. He picked out a book that had pictures of household items and the word that each item was under the picture. He was able to "sound out" or guess a lot of the pictures. In the next session I plan to bring a variety of simple begining books and offer Jake a choice instead of picking a book for him. He likes to be in control as much as possible and in order to keep him focused it appears letting him choose his book, and giving him a choice of activities seems to work.

During the session with Cheyenne, I was able to do a get to know you activity with her. We did two interest inventories together and we talked about the types of books she likes to read. Also, Cheyenne discussed that she would like to practice reading because she does not feel like she reads as well as other students. We read The __Scrambled States of America__ by Laurie Keller. Cheyenne said that she liked this book and that she had listened to it on tape which she says helped her read it. We did a drawing activity and she read me a book called __Snakes__. Next week I will start doing assessments with Cheyenne and I will let her continue reading __Snakes__ for the remaining 5-10 minutes of the session.