Award-Winning Phonics Tutors serving Reading

We covered the future tense today. The students already knew how to use "I will," but I taught them that they can also say "I am going to" or "I am +ing." They grasped the concepts quickly and were interested in learning to speak in the future tense in all three forms. We need to review contractions and the conjugation of "to be" in our next lesson.

We read a level K nonfiction book. The student is doing much better at using the context and prediction to decode unfamiliar words. We also worked on multiplication and division with arrays, and he understands the concepts. I introduced strategies for solving word problems, especially eliminating unneeded information as well as finding the "question" and the operation to solve it.

Student 1 and I worked on two passages. One focused on the skill of supporting evidence, and the second passage was an informational text. He did well with questions for both passages and did a great job of supporting his responses with textual evidence. Student 2 worked on two passages: one of which was focused on theme, and the second passage was an informational text. He struggled a little with the theme passage, so we will continue to work on those "beyond the text" strategies to help with his confidence and skills.

The student and I picked up where we left off. We worked on two basic things. First, we discussed the initial 20 chapters or so of Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations." He is reading this for his AP Literature and Composition class. He has been giving the novel a close reading, and he knows it very well. We will resume this conversation next week. Second, he shared with me a 1000 character (maximum) proposal for a program at his choice college. I was able to assist him in improving the quality of the written proposal. This kid is something. He never ceases to amaze me.

Today we covered a fluency passage and worked on answering comprehension questions. Then we practiced short vowel sounds. It appears that the student is ready to move on though we will occasionally monitor his understanding as sessions progress. We finally worked on a comprehension piece which focused on sequence.

I administered a quiz to assess the student's comprehension of his outside reading book. He correctly answered 50% of the questions without needing to refer to his reading logs and another 25% of the questions after checking his logs. Since most of the questions that he struggled with came from early chapters of the novel and his logs for those chapters were not as concise as his later ones, I assigned him to reread and relog certain chapters before he takes his AR assessment at school. We also reviewed strategies for finding main ideas in nonfiction passages.