Award-Winning Phonics Tutors serving Cambridge

Today we started with ELA practice. The student read a passage and answered multiple choice questions (4/5 correct). Then we worked on some math and practiced multiplying by powers of 10. I also taught her about the coordinate plane and locating ordered pairs. Finally, we went back to ELA. She read a passage from another student and answered multiple choice questions, then she read a passage from her short story and answered short-response questions. For homework, she has a math worksheet on division word problems and for ELA, a passage and accompanying questions.

For this session, the student and I read aloud Act 2 of her play. She enjoyed acting and giving an unique spin to each of the characters. After we read the play together, I had her complete the accompanying assessments for Act 2. We reviewed the vocabulary and discussed the different types of irony. For the next session, she and I will read aloud Act 3 and complete the accompanying assessment.

The scholars read two fiction passages and answered multiple choice questions. Both students were engaged with the material for the entire session, and they were both very bright and articulate boys. I have no concerns from this session.

The student and I spent about 45 minutes reviewing his speech for his class. During this time, I timed him reading the speech twice (once from memory and once with it in front of him). He ended up cutting 2 paragraphs from the speech because he realized that he would be over the 6 minute and 30 second limit. I asked him to fully memorize the speech for next week so that I can listen to him and help him prepare for his presentation (which is 40% of his final grade). We then spent the last 15 minutes reviewing for his test that is on April 1st. We read two passages together and then answered some multiple choice questions. For next week I am going to print out the recently released test and review some of the sample essays with him. I think that it is important for him to understand what the different grades on the essays mean before we practice writing them. I also told him that we are going to practice writing some essays in order to prepare for the test.

Through a process of multiple drafts, the student composed a strong introductory sentence for his paragraph. He also accumulated and contextualized supporting quotes from the text. When the student returns, we will continue preparing for his in-class paragraph by focusing on teacher comments received on the last assignment of this kind.

This was an intro session. We read A Very Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, practiced writing vocabulary words from the book, and did shape identification and counting up to 20. The student knows her alphabet, shapes, and numbers up to 20. I left her with homework to practice writing vocabulary words from A Snowy Day 5 times each.