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At the beginning of the session, I reviewed letter and consonant blend sounds with the student, and we did a matching activity about homophones. Then, I had him read through a Dr. Seuss book as a warm-up, and then we started going through a Babar story. During the reading time, whenever he had trouble with a word, I would help him to break the word into smaller parts and sound out the sections of the word.

We practiced velocity, speed, displacement, acceleration and started learning what vectors and scalars are and how to get their magnitude and direction. He struggles with remembering equations but he has the attitude to learn; he tries to understand. I wanted him to practice some of the problems for vectors and their magnitude and direction. I think he is good, just needs more practice.

The student has an exam next week, so we went over various practice problems from sample exams. Topics included: first and second derivative test, graph sketching, linear approximation, determining horizontal and vertical asymptotes, optimization, and other topics. For the most part, the student has a much better understanding of these problems than in the past. I recommended the student read the beginning of each chapter covered, since it offers a supplemental perspective on the concepts. In addition, I recommended more practice problems in the form of the optional homework problems provided by his class.

We found some of the student's printed practice tests (Form A and Form B of the Middle Level ISEE) and working through a couple sections on Form A. She completed the entire Verbal Reasoning section, and we discussed her answers and any questions she had about some of the words used. Next, we worked step-by-step through the first 18 questions of the Mathematics Achievement section. This featured a good amount of geometry and some concepts that she took a little time to warm up to, so I worked with her on the details of each problem to make certain she understood exactly what it was we were doing. This will also help her retain the skills needed to solve these problems on her own in the near future.

The student has a knack for antiderivatives, so indefinite integrals and related problems involving area under curves are a breeze for her. The only tricky problems from the beginning of integration are the physics word problems, which we worked on together by talking about how to diagnose each problem.

We went over finding volumes using the disc and washer method, which is a very difficult topic. The student seemed to be struggling with the concept behind the method, but was doing better towards the end of the session.