Sarah TP#6

March 26, 2014

My third tutoring session with P.J. was much more successful. His dad had mistakenly taken his study materials to work, so P.J. and I looked through a Physiology book geared toward kids (with lots of pictures!) while we awaited the delivery of his worksheets. This sparked a conversation about what life without a tongue would be like. He's a really imaginative kid. This week his vocabulary list was made up of rather abstract words such as "worthy" and "relieved" which were harder to explain. I did my best to give P.J. meaningful examples such as him being "worthy of ice cream," (which we were eating) but in response he asked, "Can't you just tell me what it is?"

After giving him synonyms and asking that he repeat the meaning of each vocabulary word to me, we moved on to reading practice. I feel that these timed exercises are easier for P.J. if for no reason other than there being an obvious point: speed. Like in a video game, the aim is to beat his own high score. We were both pretty excited when on his final run he finished the reading in 59 seconds, having shaved nearly a full minute off his time. After a celebratory high five, I asked again about Science Camp. This time he even showed me what he had made--a rocket and a parachute. Standing on his bed, he dropped the plastic-bag-parachute and explained to me as it floated downward, "that's engineering." I feel like P.J. is really starting to warm up to me and I'm looking forward to our next meeting.