Certified Tutors From University of South Carolina-Columbia

The student and I made some real progress with writing algebraic expressions from verbal statements. In between working on that, we reviewed order-of-operations with a few advanced problems.

Reviewed results of client's timed Prep Test, for which his scaled score was 157 (3+ points below his goal). Began to analyze answers question by question so that client can understand why he answered questions incorrectly, and which questions he struggles with most (client will independently complete this process for entire Prep Test). This preliminary analysis demonstrated that client's current areas that need attention are in grouping games (particularly those with unbalanced numerical distributions), assumption questions, and method of reasoning/flaw in the reasoning questions. I reinforced the techniques of advanced setups for the Logic Games, particularly creating templates and identifying a limited set of solutions when appropriate. I encouraged client to review the strategies for these specific question types prior to his next Prep Test, which client stated he will take on Friday, 12/23.

We went over some math concepts that she had had trouble with: rationalizing expressions, function notation, and the equations for common graphs. Then we talked about strategies to manage her time, and practiced on an exam.

We sang several songs on a CD from a previous tutor, including "La mar estaba serena", "Grande y chiquito", and "Mam? y Pap?".  Though the girls knew a lot of the words, they didn't always know the meaning of what they were singing, so we talked through each song.   I read through "?Donde est? Spot?" by Eric Hill, and then the girls read through the book on their own.  It covered some prepositions of location and animal names.  We finished up by playing charades with the emotion cards made in a previous lesson.

The student and I met to go over a chapter of the Trojan War book for her Latin class.  We focused on the strategy of how to keep characters straight and how to analyze which events in the narrative are of primary importance. Ordering events by importance is an important skill, and understanding how the author highlights these events is crucial. We looked at the impact of the death of Achilles' friend, for instance, to go back and see how the events leading up to his death held special significance. If the person killed wearing Achilles' armor were not his best friend, then the event has less importance.

During this session we continued working on 4-digit subtraction with regrouping. The student did very well with this. She has improved in remembering to show her work. I feel comfortable moving on to different subjects as she has shown independence with this topic.