Certified Tutors From New Mexico State University-Grants

We worked on the unit circle, graphing trig equations, and the shifting of graphs. The student has practiced more. She is getting better with the unit circle; she almost has it all memorized. She does really well at the graph shifts. Just keep practicing to get through them faster.

Today we worked on reading comprehension. The student did an amazing job at forming a conclusion based on an example and foreshadowing. When we started with the book, I emphasized the foreshadowing by underlining key phrases and discussing with him possible outcomes of such conjecture. At the end of the novel, he was able to pick up on clues with no prompting and correctly ascertain what the author was foreshadowing. Not only was he able to understand the theme of the foreshadowing, but was also able to form a detailed picture of the outcome. It's been impressive progress! I am excited to re-visit the idea of metaphor and theme now that he has finished the book and will recognized the use of repetition through his study of foreshadowing. Additionally, the book's setting and theme coincide with his global studies and science lessons in school.

We previewed Session 12.1 on introduction of solids. It involves understanding the different definitions of solids, calculating the surface area of solids, relations between edges, faces and vertices. The student is a very organized and smart student. She learns fast and is very positive towards the materials. I have full faith in her capability.

We started the session by going over the student's homework for tomorrow. It was primarily about triangle angle theorems including single variables. Initially, he wanted to do all of the work in his head, which was clearly tripping him up. I gave him a simple way to set up the equations and walked through a problem with him. We worked on isolating variables on one side of the equation and non-variables on the other. By the end, I think he bought into my system and hopefully he uses it moving forward. He indicated he previously had trouble with inequalities, so we went over two examples that were in his textbook. After explaining to him that it was the same basic process as the previous problems, he finished the problems with minimal input from me. There were about fifteen minutes left in the session and we went over some of the subjects he might see in the near future. We worked on parallel and transverse lines and when they are congruent and supplemental. I then introduced the Pythagorean Theorem to him and did a quick proof. Overall, I think the session went well and hopefully we corrected some of the behaviors that had left him a bit confused.

The student and I worked on algebra. He had some problems regarding how to find the standard form of equations. Also, we worked on editing his Spanish composition. Finally, he had a couple of minutes to work on a new composition and show he fixed his mistakes.

We finished up the essay on The Golden Compass we'd been working on progressively. We also thought about the structure of a personal narrative. We discussed the ingredients needed to tell a complete story and how sensory details can be used to add description to each of those.