Marissa_TP#1

Marissa M.
Tutoring Blog #1
9/11/14

After class I had my first tutoring session with Zoe.  She is an 8 year old student who goes to the same elementary school that I attended when I was her age.  That was a neat connection!  When I first arrived Zoe, her younger sister, and myself all sang the school song that students are required to sing each day at school.  They seemed to think it was neat that I still remember it (word for word) and went to the same school.

Her mother and I spoke about specific areas she wants Zoe to work on.  She asked me not to help her with her homework as that is what most tutors have done in the past and it didn't seem to help her much - she is able to complete assignments, but that does not improve her communication skills as much.  Instead, her mother asked that I focus on speaking and writing with Zoe.  She suggested that each week we read a new Accelerated Reader (or other) book that Zoe will bring home from the library in order to help her with her reading tests.  There is also a journal that Zoe keeps for her writings and her mother wants her to use this.

When Zoe and I began our lesson, we started by reading a book about a dog who attended school and his daily routine.  I honestly do not remember the name of the book, but she seemed to like it and had very little problem with most of the words.  The few longer words that she did have problems with were those such as principal and cafeteria.  I made a list of all words she struggled with to work on during our next session.

After Zoe finished reading the book, we wrote sentences in her journal about her typical school day.  To do this, I went back page by page in the book we had read and had her write one sentence about each portion of the day from waking up to being picked up at the end of the day.  I let her write out each sentence and once she was done had her re-read and ask if she noticed anything about the sentence.  Most times she picked up on the verb tense and/or misused word that she had chosen.  She would make the correction and we would move on to the next.  However, a few times I had to explain the rules to her and correct the word she had chosen.  Overall, she was still very good at this activity.

Zoe told me that she very much enjoyed fashion design and wanted to be a fashion designer.  She has pictures that she has drawn all over her office.  I noted this for future sessions.  I ended up staying for almost 2 1/2 hours during this session.  For the future I will have to plan some things that can be finished in an hour and a half instead.