Literacy Tutoring 4

L's Spelling Words

My fourth tutoring lesson was a little more tough than the other lessons, although I did learn some valuable information that I can work on with L to improve his literacy skills.   As usual, we started with the survey assessment.  This weeks survey assessment was spelling.  I knew going into this lesson that it might be a struggle, and it proved to be hard for L.  L got the first three words spelled correctly, but those were the only words he got out of the list.  By the middle of the list, L had a lot of trouble focusing.  One of the hardest parts of the lesson was encouraging L to keep going.  Towards the middle, I received a lot of “ I don’t know” answers.  I could tell he was getting frustrated.  Even though he had trouble with spelling words, I read all the words to make sure to give him a chance to try.  I think working on confidence and continuing to encourage him to just try is a skill we can work on.  Though the assessment was a challenge to get through, I did learn that L is pretty good at his ability to sound phonetic words with short vowels.  He knows most of the sounds of the alphabet and is able to put them together.  A challenge for L was the blends and digraphs.  L would hear the first letter of the word and just place that without acknowledging that there may be other letters in the word. Even though L did not try every word and he looked a little discouraged, I tried to reassure him that he was doing a great job listening and trying his best.  Additionally, assessments such as these are helpful to me to understand what I can work on with L during our remaining sessions.  

L's survey assessment 

After the assessment, we moved over to reading together.  This week we were focusing on reading comprehension.  I wanted to read a fantasy book that fits perfectly into our nature theme, so I chose The Lorax. As I reflect on this lesson, I think I would use this book during a different survey assessment where the survey assessment doesn’t last quite so long.  As I was reading the story and looking at the clock, I realized that we would not get the whole story read, so I had to adjust a little.  I was originally planning on reading the whole thing and then doing a notecard activity at the end of the book to check for comprehension.  Instead, I focused more on doing comprehension throughout the book.  I stopped to ask questions about the characters, what was happening, and so on.  These were the questions that I had written on the notecards, but I wanted to ask them throughout because we were running out of time.  We did not quite finish the book, but L was able to answer questions about what we had read so far in the story.  Since we were short on time this week, we did not have the chance to work on the ABC thematic unit book.  Hopefully next week we will have a little extra time to spend on that, since it seems like it’s an activity that L really enjoys doing.  

The questions I asked throughout the reading!

As far as differentiation, as with all my lessons so far, I like to find book with vivid and fun images.  This allows L to see what is happening in the story.  As an English language learner, it seems very helpful for L.  Although The Lorax has some fun and goofy images that may not be easy to recognize, L seemed to be able to pick up on what different images may have represented.  During the spelling survey assessment, I said the words in a sentence. I realized that some of the words were words he may not have ever heard before, so I wanted to give a little more context.  Therefore, I used the provided sentences to help L a little more and give him time and context to think about the words.  

After doing the survey assessment, I have come up with a couple of goals to work on with L.  First of all, I would like to work more on blends and diagraphs.  I think spending even just a few minutes each session practicing a couple of blends would be helpful so L can see how letters come together to make different sounds.  I also have the goal to continue to encourage L and allow him to feel confident, even if he makes mistakes.  He struggles trying if he is not absolutely sure, and I want to teach him that it’s ok to try and get an answer wrong; that’s one of the best ways to learn!