Alison

Alison's Page
I was unable to tutor for the first two weeks because the first week my student dropped out of the program and the second week my new student did not come. Thankfully, this last week I got to work with TJ who is a second grader and is very intelligent. We did many 'get to know you' interviews and talked about our interests and our thoughts about literacy in general. We read a story that I brought about different animals which was too easy for him. We went over and picked out an informational book about different animals using their colors to survive. TJ is very smart and wanted to discuss every detail, he made our session enjoyable and it went very quick! I will conduct a running record this Thursday! I am excited to keep the tutoring going!

11/4/10

I finally completed my running record for TJ! We read a chapter book that was labled for 2nd graders that I think was a little difficult but I wanted to see where his strengths and weaknesses were. He did a great job and finished the portion I asked him to read. I will be completing the miscue analysis soon. His mom sent him with a book that he is reading at home. He read each page out loud but then at the end we discussed what happened. He read the first 29 pages and at the end I asked him to write a little summary of what he remembered! He did a wonderful job, we will continue with that next Thursday and we will pick out words he doesn't know to put in his dictionary that we will make!

11/18/10

TJ and I picked out a great mystery book that he wanted to read! I first took out a piece of paper and we talked about what a mystery is what what happens in a mystery. We took turns reading and I stopped to asked questions at the ends of pages to make sure he was comprehending the material. When it was almost time to stop we took our paper out again and he predicted what would happen in the end of the mystery. I allowed him the check out the story and bring in back after Thanksgiving break!

2/15/11

I worked with Mira Mae for the first time last Wednesday and she was so much fun! She is a very intelligent little Kindergartener and shared a lot of cool information with me! We read 3 different books and she wrote a coupld sentences for me about herself! I am excited to continue working with her, I also noticed that there is a alternative assessment for the RR for a Kindergartener. I will be doing this not this week but next week correct? Can't wait!

2/22/11

I working with Mira for the second time last Wednesday! She did a wonderful job again and this time we worked on her digraphs! CH SH and TH sounds, I had her make her own flash cards of words that included these sounds that she thought of herself. It was a fun session with Mira and I look forward to the alternative assessment tomorrow!

2/28/11

Last Wednesday I watched Natalie give Mira her alternate assessment. She did a phenomenal job and actually started doing the 2nd grade level words for part of the test. Her comprehension skills were also really great as Natalie asked her questions about a book without showing her pictures. We will look at the real pictures this coming Wednesday and work on some more letter sounds.

Hi Alison,

I am delighted to hear you are enjoying working with Mira Mae. This is a great example of how when in the classroom you will be working with all kinds of readers, not just those that we consider struggling. Richard Allington suggests that teachers hone in on and teach toward the bottom 40% of the readers in our classroom. I believe that if you have the opportunity to conduct your classroom reading primarily by ability group, all students are offered the opportunity to be challenged accordingly. This is an art that can be accomplished and is very rewarding. However, if your district does not encourage grouping, my beliefs coincide with Allington's. Keep up the great work encouraging Mira's reading growth.

Best, Natalie

I was able to have a tutor session with Mira after her Spring Break and my dance trip to nationals. We worked on syntax skills with word order in sentences and we also did some personal feeling questions that she wrote about herself! She was as happy as usual and I look forward to our last few weeks together! Thanks for your input Natalie, it is always a help!

Mira was not feeling very well this past week at tutoring. However, she was still very eager to keep reading! We have been working on a lot of writing so we switched to more reading this week. She read through 3 books and answered questions that I had aboutt he text and some hypothesis questions before reading also.