Carlton TP #3

First tutee session with third grade twins, David and Matthew,  American born of Korean parents. Monday March 10, 5:30-7pm

I tutor DH and Bianca tutors MH. The mother insists that the two boys must be visually separated in different rooms or they will act out too much.

We all meet at the main Library on Park Street and agree that we will meet a little later (after 6pm) in the future to avoid the new parking fees in the lot. We used the stacks to separate the kids in the youth reading area. There is one private meeting room available sometimes by reservation, but we did not use it since the boys proved to be very well behaved. We chose a comfortable seating area facing each other with a small table for my computer and room to write. He liked the padded chairs better here.

After introductions, I asked DH to talk about a favorite book he read recently. He related the story of a prince fighting a dragon and saving a girl in short sentences and good logical order and I understood what he liked about it, the strategy of defeating the monster. His favorite genre is fantasy and science fiction, especially Star Wars, Pokemon, and some comics. His mother does not like his reading choices, but she provides them portable video gaming devices where these kinds of adventure stories predominate the titles. The boys are energetic and fidget in their seats, but I would hesitate to label them as having any unusual attention issues. He did not require any behavioral corrections during our session.

First, we spoke a bit about his school and family. He told me about his summer plans to go to Seoul and visit relatives and he demonstrated his writing in Korean.

Next, we addressed his homework, a reading for comprehension worksheet on family traditions and memory boxes. I noticed he read fairly well, but often slurred words or sometimes made an unexplained substitution. We encountered a few new vocabulary words, "tiara", "crochet", "fragile"; but he was not proactive in asking about unfamiliar words. I had to inquire directly. I used computer dictionary lookup and Google images to help explain these in a way that held his interest and modeled an easy way to check words. He was familiar with navigating Google searches. He was attracted to the image view collection and I noted this kept him focused on the vocabulary. In completing the worksheet, it became clear he was not very diligent about reading the questions carefully, but he understood them well if he did. I guided him in discovering the corrections for a few questions about the reading by returning to check the text.

We then addressed his math worksheet that was already complete. His only errors were related to the definition of "trapezoid" and we also checked this visually using image examples.

After finishing a few minutes early, I wanted to end the session with a little more fun activity. I had brought some cards and a puzzle to use as interactive tools and we finished the hour with the puzzle (also a clue to his visual learning preference). I thought he was a very attentive student overall and look forward to being able to help him improve study habits and address English speaking proficiency.