On my 8th tutoring session I was thrown a bit of
a curve-ball. Due to scheduling, Matthew and David’s mom wanted me to tutor both
of them on this day. I knew David was the more fidgety of the two, but I was up
for the challenge. Luckily I would tutor them one after the other, and not at
the same time. David was not easy to talk to at first, responding to questions with
the absolute minimum of interaction. Soon he opened up to me a little bit after
I introduced myself. I wanted to keep him focused and not get bored so I was
quick to keep him occupied with many different small assignments that I would
also use to assess his language level and needs. I recycled the inventor prompt
once again for a free write assignment. I also wanted to get a speaking sample
from him so I asked him to tell me about his dream vacation. I showed him how
to do this with 15 seconds of planning and then a one minute spoken response
that I recorded. I would later transcribe this response for him and me to
review later. I also had him read a sample from a kid’s astronomy book. We also
reviewed the parts of speech, as I found them to be a foundation for much of the
tutoring lessons with other tutees.
WOW! So many activities in one session! I suppose that is necessary for children with short attention spans. That sounds exhausting though. Kudos to you, Dennis!
ReplyDeleteI did not ever get a speaking sample from any of my tutees but I do really like that idea. I also like that you planned out and showed David, step by step, how to talk about his dream vacation. You provided a lot of linguistic support instead of just telling him to do something. Awesome!