Certified Tutors From Burlington College

We went over the student's math, reading and verbal homework. We worked through math problems, went through reading of his assigned book for the week and also went over his weekly words and did the homework assigned with them.

Today we covered the grammar workbook section on adjectives and adverbs.  The student did fairly well on these topics, but could use additional work on adverbs.  We also read and discussed his latest essay, which was a readers' response.  Then we brainstormed and organized for his next essay, a descriptive piece.

The student is doing really well on the practice tests so far. She timed herself on two sections over the weekend -- math and vocabulary -- and did fairly well on both. She realized that she has much more time on the math than she needs, and that she needed to review fractions (which we did today). We worked on slowing down with the problems, and using the extra time to double check answers, something she hadn't done on the practice test she took. With vocabulary, we're trying to find the fine line between purely guessing and taking an educated guess. She has a good grasp on vocabulary, but could probably skip a couple of the more challenging questions to prevent losing too many points from the penalty for guessing. We'll continue working on the math, making sure she knows how to break down story problems and practicing the more basic concepts.

We went over different types of nouns (common, proper, collective, abstract, concrete). Then we read a jumbled personal narrative and put the sentences in sequential order. We also discussed components of a personal narrative so that we can write one the next session. We also went over some vocabulary and spelling (she wrote 5 words that she misspelled/did not know 10 times each). Lastly, we proofread a story that contained several errors and corrected it using the proofreading symbols.

Answered the homework questions that he had trouble with for his exam tomorrow. These included properties of metals, nonmetals and metalloids. We also talked about acidity of oxides and how to infer properties by comparing atoms of similar position on the periodic table.

The student and I spent most of this session working on memorizing a song for a class performance, "Vuela, Vuela." She already had the translation of the song, so she understood what it meant, but I worked with her on pronunciation. In addition, she practiced the song by singing along with an online video. Finally, we spent the end portion of our session working on fruit vocabulary. We reviewed the words by asking questions such as "?Te gustan ___________?" (Do you like _________?). We also did other exercises from her book about fruit. Overall she did an excellent job this session.