TP #8

I met with Sally at the library again. She brought a book of reading exercises that she works on in her own time to improve her reading skills. I opened up the book and asked Sally to choose a story that she'd be interested in reading. She immediately chose the article about Anne Frank and her diary. Heavy stuff. 

Before we started reading, I wanted to have a discussion about the historical context of Anne Frank. Build the schema and whatnot. Sally didn't know who Anne Frank was, or why someone would write about her diary. At this point I took on the task of trying to give a condensed version of WWII, the holocaust, and the Frank family's situation within it. I think I managed to convey the tragedy and sadness of the situation without being age-inappropriate. 

Before she began reading, I wanted to introduce her to a reading strategy I used to use. I wrote down a step-by-step method that she could use, which goes as follows:

1. Read the title (Guess what the text will be about)

2. Read the first and last sentence of each paragraph

3. Read each question following the text

4. Skim the text for words you do not know

5. Read the text

6. Complete the questions

We went over vocabulary together for a majority of the session. We practiced using context clues, looking at suffixes, and prefixes to guess the meanings of words we don't know. 

Sally told me she was nervous about taking the FCAT this week. I reassured her that she was very intelligent, and she would do well. I also talked to her about my experiences with the FCAT growing up. I told her a few tricks to help with nervousness during a test. She seemed to feel confident about it. I hope it went well.