Sarah TS #3

Date/Time: 16 May / 7:30 - 9:00PM 

Location: Tutee's house

Topic/Skill:  Reading comprehension 

Feedback provided to tutee: As my child tutee, PJ, read Ch.9 of Lois Lowry's Number the Stars aloud, I would stop him after every few paragraphs, roughly each page, and ask him to summarize what he read into his own words.

If he was a bit off, I would use questions to try to lead him back in the right direction.

If he still didn't have much to say he would try to glance over some of the text and guess, which wasn't necessarily a bad strategy, but I encouraged him not to look back because comprehension and was our main focus and glancing at the text had him trying to use specific words/phrases from the book rather than coming up with a summary on his own.

I would also occasionally ask PJ a few comprehension questions that I would come up with as he read.

 If he didn't get the answer right, I could try asking him a different question that would help him answer the first, rather than just simply tell him. This method seemed to work for the most part, but if he was having trouble we would just go back and reread a specific part together again. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I learned that PJ reads well, really well in fact, and if he has trouble with any words, just breaking them up into syllables (e.g. rhythmic/al/ly) helps him with his pronunciation. He is also a pretty decent guesser when it comes to unfamiliar vocab, but he still had no idea on a few and so I would just explain them. Some terms, e.g. frothy (describing milk), were easier to show using a visual so I just used my phone to look up images, while others, e.g. hearse and mourning, demanded a more formal explanation or one by example. After this session, I also realized that I need to be more mindful of the time and adjust lesson/methods accordingly, especially considering that children do not have as long as an attention span as say you or I! Overall, I truly enjoyed reading with my tutee and I hope that I am able to be as much of a facilitator as I need to be in order for our upcoming sessions to utilized productively.