Megan's+Page

=4/25/2011= Today's session was another hour and a half session. We began the session by writing in his blog. He chose two specific events from his natural disaster book to include in his blog today. He wrote about the Great Chicago Fire and a Volcano Eruption. It is really intriguing that he is SO into this type of thing. He told me today that he wants to go to college at ISU and wants to become a scientist. Interesting :)

Anyways, after that, we went over his words and he requested that we write on the dry erase board again. This time I did it a bit differently. I wrote 5 sentences that left out the sight words (blank lines). He had to chose which sight word fit correctly within each sentence. He did very well with this actually and I think it helped him understand some of the words he was confused with.

Then, we read the book "There's a Wocket in my Pocket". We have been focusing a lot on rhyming words and I think it helps with his fluency a lot. Before the session today I took mini-post it notes and covered up some of the rhyming words within the book. If you have read this book before you know on each page there is a made up word that rhymes with a real word (object within the house). I had him guess the real word based on the made up rhyming word and pictures. He did very well at this. By the end of the book he was able to guess pretty much all of the covered words without a struggle!

Finally we spent time working on his story jumper. He told me he really wants to finish this before we are done tutoring. Considering this may have been our last session, that doesn't seem possible. He did create his own user name and log in at home so he can work on it there. I also wrote down his blog information so he can keep writing in that at home.

We plan on meeting one last time next week (if that is okay?) I do not have many finals to study for so I think it should be okay! I think that is what you said. :)

The over all experience has been great !

=4/18/2011= Last week I had to reschedule because I was stranded at home (long story). So, we decided to split up the missed session within two weeks. SO today we went for an hour and a half. We started with the blog again. He went to a Museum that featured the Titanic in Iowa, so as you can imagine he had A LOT to say! (Check out his blog!) After this we reviewed his last weeks sight words as well as all of the previous weeks. He made 0 mistakes and I was fairly impressed. I introduced the new words and sent them home in a list. I also sent home his "words I know" baggy so he could practice his flash cards at home. Since I have been sending them home it really seems that he is improving. Next, we read the book "hop on pop." This book is very repetitive and is full of rhyming words. I have read that both of these features help to improve fluency. Again, I pointed at the words as he went along and he really read it very well. After we finished reading, I gave him a few words and had him come up with as many rhyming words as possible. I gave him my alphabet magnets to help him come up with more words. The visual of the original word I gave him really seemed to boost his creativity when it came to making new words. I then selected another Doctor Seuss book, "box on fox" and we took turns reading it. If you have read this book, you know that it is a tongue twister and very difficult to read without mistakes, even for me! He thought this was funny and was giggling. I had him repeat a lot of the pages I was reading, this seemed to make it easier for him to read. After this we went into the small room with the white board. I had him randomly select a sight word from his bag and I created a starter sentence with this word used in it. For example, I wrote: "The hospital was __" And I had him complete the sentence. I did this to insure his understanding of all the sight words. He really seemed to enjoy doing this on the big board, it motivated him to keep going! We finished up the session by working on his book on story jumper. Time flew by so we did not have much time to do this!

We have one more session next week and then its finals week. I think I should be able to do the session finals week as well, you said this was okay right? He keeps asking if I am going to be here next year? Do you have tutoring in the fall? Also his Dad asked about summer tutoring? I won't be here but will the Borg Center be open for other tutors?

Megan,

Creating a blog for Keagan was great! You did a fantastic job in helping to inspire his writing. For him to go home and show his aunt and mom this, it apparently made quite an impact. In doing this he is recognizing his autonomy in learning and that is wonderful.

I enjoyed reading how you used storyjumper to further engage him. As long as he in intrinsically motivated by the Titanic, his literacy skills will improve when reading, writing, and through discussion. I'm not too familiar with maritime vessels, but perhaps his interests could be expanded by exploring other vessels, life of crew members, etc. I wonder what fascinates him about the Titanic. Nothing wrong with it at all, just curious about what it is that captures his attention and motivates him to want to know more.

I enjoyed how you had him dictate punctuation as you typed his story. Wonderful work!

Best, Natalie

Natalie, I often wonder the same thing about the Titanic fascination! He was telling me again today what to type and I even had to look up some of the words (especially the names of the crew members). He cracks me up! We wrote more in his blog today... he added a picture... I quote, "My blog gets cooler and cooler everyday!" Megan

=4/4/2011= Today Keagan pre-wrote his blog entry at home. He brought it to the tutoring session hand written and then typed it up. He thought of this himself and I was very impressed. He told me he showed his blog to his Aunt and Mom and they both really liked it. He actually used "storyjumper.com" at home, and created his own log in. He showed me his book that he started working on at home, I thought this was very neat that he actually took what I taught him and brought it home! We read the book "Salt in my Shoes" it was about Michael Jordan. I chose this book because he said he also liked sports and he seems to just focus on topics that pertain to the Titanic or the solar system. After we read the book, we filled out a "Story Pyramid". This is a method that helped him outline what happened in the story in his own words. It really helped him stay on topic when summarizing the book. After this I had him read "When you give a mouse a cookie." We read this twice. Both times I did a running record. I was looking to see if his miscues improved the second time he read it. I assumed they would because re-reading usually causes this to happen. The second time he read it, not only did his miscues improve but we discovered that pointing to each word with a pen (or following along with a pen) really helps him read. He actually makes no mistakes when he does this. This was an awesome discovery and one that I made sure to share with his dad. We reviewed his words, and went over the older ones. He had definitely practice at home this time because he made no mistakes. I was very happy with how this tutoring session went and I think he was too! =3/29/2011= Just as we do everyday, we began today's lesson by writing in the blog. I encouraged him to ignore the spell check and continue to write his thoughts, this really helped him write more. I am going to have to find a way to turn spell check off before next time, I can see how that is distracting. After this, we quickly reviewed the "sight words" he was assigned to take home. Then we jumped right into a book called "If the shoe fits." It is a book full of nursery rhymes. I explained to him that he would be writing his own story and could steal ideas from the variety of nursery rhymes represented in this book. We alternated pages while reading this book aloud. It was full of rhyming and I believe that this really helped with his fluency. He struggled with less words and was able to self correct more efficiently. After we finished reading the book, we went to a website called storyjumper.com -- This is a site where you can log in (FOR FREE) and create your own story book! He was really into this because he has been writing his own titanic book. I was trying to sway away from that topic and encourage a more fictional one (creative writing) but he was very set on writing about the titanic, so I figured I'd let him. We made a cover page and created two actual pages with pictures and text. I decided that I would type for him as long as he would tell me exactly what he wanted me to type (including, "enter," "period", "comma," etc). This went well because typing seems to slow down the writing process! He was very eager to use this program at home and asked me to write down the website for him. I hope his dad is not mad that I am introducing him to all these online things! After that we went over the sight words that he is supposed to use next time and did a quick review of all the sight words we have used since the beginning. I sent the bag of flash cards home with him this time hoping that he would be more motivated to practice these words if he had them as flash cards rather than a list. = = =3/22/2011= Yesterday we started off by writing in his blog. This seems to be trickier than I had expected. He enjoys writing in it, but is very distracted by the spelling corrector. Then we spent time reviewing his sight words that I had sent home last week. It was very obvious that he did not practice because he struggled with a lot of the words. He usually knows them all. He is also on spring break so it seemed that he was antsy to get in and out of tutoring. After the sight words, we went over some new phrases. We had been working on high frequency phrases at the 4th grade level the past 2 weeks, BUT he did so well with them that I thought I'd try the 5th grade level. He did excellent with these too, but did not read with as great expression. That is okay though. We then went over all the sight words from the previous weeks, most of which he remembered and easily recognized it. It seemed that he was a bit aggravated and wanted to do something more "fun," but I explained to him why the words were important and that they would help him become a better reader and he began to cooperate. After this we read the book Farmer Brown goes round and round. He seemed to like this because of all the animals sounds that were in the text. He enjoyed making the noises as he read them. But, I did notice that when I asked him a few comprehension questions throughout the book he was unable to answer all of them. He was more focused on reading the words than understanding them. Finally, I let him select a book from the Borg Library. I selected two books from the 3rd grade bin (when he was not looking, I think the 4th grade ones may be slightly too challenging for him) and let him pick. He chose the one about towers. He was very interested in this and kept spitting out facts that he knew about the Empire State building and the Sears tower! He learned that "stories" also meant levels/floors and was very excited about this. = = =3/13/2011= Today we focused on reading mainly. First, I had Keagan write in his blog, he really enjoys doing this. He wrote for about 5-7 minutes. He was very curious about adding pictures to his blog (since he is able to log on at home), so I showed him how to do that as well. Then we reviewed his two past sight words lists, he did very well. I introduced the new word list and we ran through them together (15 words). Then, we went through his word phrases that I printed out for him and he knew them all and read them with great expression just like the previous time. I am going to have to pick out different phrases for the next session because he does very well with those and I think he could be challenged a bit more. I read that rhyming words help with fluency so I brought in the book "The Cat in the Hat." He said he read this before, and he did pretty well and only made a few mistakes. Towards the end he got bored of it and wanted to read to me his titanic book that he wrote himself. It was very interesting so I let him do that. It was amazing how easily he went over all the words, even very difficult ones. It seems to me that he has read that quite a few times. We found some errors that he wanted to fix (as he was reading aloud) so he said he'd bring me the edited copy next time.

@http://voicethread.com/ = = =2/28/2011= Today was an eventful evening, we covered a lot. I introduced the blog to him, Keagan's Blog at the beginning. He was very very excited and I am SO glad I created it for him. I showed him (and gave him directions) on how to access it and edit it at home. I also let his Dad know that he could do this, or could choose not to. I wasn't sure if his Dad wanted him to do that at home. Next we reviewed the sight words that I sent home with him last week. He said he only practiced them a little bit but he did well. I first had all the words set out in front of him on index cards. I then said the word and had him pick it up and hand it to me. After her correctly handed me each of the 15 words I had him recite them all to me, he said them all perfectly! I was very very impressed. Then I did two running records. I recorded him reading two different passages, one about boats (he likes them) and one about lighthouses. The boat one was a lot less challenging than the lighthouse one but I think he was nervous due to the recording, so he made more mistakes than normal. I am going to record him reading again next time so I can have a more accurate assessment. Before the tutoring session I pre-printed a bunch of sentence strips with different "common phrases" on them that I got off of read,write,think. I had him read these to me, and he did so with great expression and very few mistakes, I was rather impressed. Finally, I introduced pre-fixes to him. He said he had already learned about them in class and he told me briefly what he knew. I picked three to focus on, "pre, un, and re". We came up with words that used these prefixes and then he used three from each and used them in a sentence. He needed a little help coming up with ideas but he understood the concept very well. I sent him home with another list to practice, and next time we are going to do similar activities but I think we are going to focus more on just reading. He has brought a few books and we haven't really gotten much time to read them. I'm looking forward to see if he updates his blog from home.

=2/21/2011= Today Keagan brought two books with him, one about Natural Disasters and the other about the Solar system. (I told him to again bring a book he was interested in). I asked him to read aloud from the books, and although he seemed to have a lot to say about them both were extremely above his reading level. I am still going to encourage him to bring in books because it gives me idea's of what he is interested in and maybe I can find books on the same topic that are more geared toward the 4th grade level.

At the beginning of the session I had Keagan write in his journal for about 5 minutes. He was easily distracted so we moved onto the next part of the session. Due to the fact that Keagan has trouble with fluency, I printed off 23 different lists of site words for 4th grade students. I selected three lists and provided a copy for Keagan and myself. I had him read the lists from top to bottom and kept track of the words he pronounced correctly and incorrectly on my list. I then sent 2 of the lists home with him to practice (I informed his Dad about this). Next week I plan to incorporate these words into the tutoring session. I am not actually sure how yet, but I am going to continue to do this with different lists each week. I have read that site words really help improve fluency.

Next, we read Curious George Flies a Kite. He was not very excited about this, he told me that his older siblings would make fun of him and tell him it is too easy of a book. He too struggled with a few of the words in this book. I encouraged him to keep reading and told him that it was a more difficult book than his siblings said. I originally planned to have him answer some comprehension questions at the end but I could tell he was getting bored so we did not finish the book (it was quite long) and I just asked him questions as we went along.

Finally, I conducted a word spree. To make it more fun, I had him spell out words with letter magnets instead of writing them. He seemed to enjoy this and actually ended up writing a few sentences with the magnets. It was interesting to see what words he came up with. I wrote them down and may have him use them in his journal entry next time.

Speaking of his journal entry, I mentioned the idea of a blog to him today. I told him that I was going to create a space on the web where he could write his journal entries at the beginning of the day instead of in a notebook. He was very excited about the idea. He also informed me that at home he is allowed to use the internet, especially if it is school related. So I plan to create the blog this week and teach him how to use it next week. I'm also going to send home some information about the blog to his parents so he can log on during the week (when we aren't meeting) and he can write. I figure this will encourage him to write more, even outside our tutoring sessions.

Next time we are going to focus on learning how to use the blog, use his site words in sentence, and hopefully incorporate something with the solar system!

I will post the blog on here as soon as I can. Here is my "Weebly" link by the way.... I am pasting these reflections in there as well. Megan's Weebly

=2/15/2011 - First Session=

Yesterday I had my first tutoring session with Keagan. He is a 10 year old very very talkative boy who is extremely interested in the "Titanic." Just on the elevator up he began reciting all these random facts. I had sent his mother an e-mail asking him to bring a book that he liked from home, just to get an idea of what he was interested in and what level he was reading at. He brought a book from the "Flat Stanley" series. He let me know that he wanted to bring the "Titanic" book but his parents thought it had too many pictures, I encouraged him to bring it to share next time.

To begin the session I told him that we'd be journaling each week for about 5-7 minutes. I gave him the option to do it at the beginning or the end, he chose the beginning. I let him write whatever he wanted, so he just wrote down about 10 facts about himself. For the second part of the session I had him read aloud and fill out the "About Me" questionnaire. This was an excellent way for me to get to know him. I learned a lot about him from that and I believe I will have an easier time selecting books. The good news is he has a love for reading and he really enjoys books about science, boats (titanic to be specific), star wars and space. He also told me that he reads often, but mostly by himself and not with his parents.

At the end of the session I had him read aloud from a book from the Borg center. He selected a leveled reader from the 4th grade basket about "adventures." While reading he struggled with a few words. When he couldn't figure them out I noticed he'd look at the pictures for hints and then get frustrated if he still couldn't figure it out. After a few tries I would help him segment/sound out the word, but if he still didn't get it I would tell him. Is this okay? I actually noticed a lot of the words had the "c" pronounced as it is in "excited," so this is something we will definitely focus on. Another thing noticed that he flew right over a lot of the punctuation so we may need to work on "concepts about print" next session as well.

Next lesson I think we are going to focus on "sight words." I think this will really enhance his fluency and we are going to use letter magnets as a more fun way to review them.