So for my child partner, I met with Maria Nichols. She is 12 years old and is from the Ukraine, and she told me that she speaks both Ukrainian and Russian as well as her developing English (which she is very good at.) Right from the start I kinda threw out my game plan. Seeing as This is my first meeting with her (Their car broke down last week) I was going to start with my diagnostics and go from there. I could have gone with this, but she was very shy, and I wanted her to feel comfortable talking with me, and asking questions... it's fairly vital with it comes to tutoring, I think we can all agree. So we just talked a little about what she likes, things she enjoys... She told me about Odessa and some of the changes she had to get use to when she moved over here. The real ice beaker was when I asked her a question in Russian. She replied without thinking, and then realized I had asked here in Russian. We talked about how I knew Russian, and some of the differences between it and Ukrainian. This took about 15 minutes, but it was well worth it.
By this time, I could tell that she spoke excellently, so I moved on and we started talking about writing, reading and grammar. We soon got on the topic of reading, and how much she loved it, so I asked her what she liked to read, and she pulled out a book she had been going through. It was the illustrated classics version of Journey to the Center of the Earth... the same kind I had growing up, so we decided that she would read it out loud, and I would listed and help her with words. As she started reading, I started making notes of different words she either mispronounced, or needed help with. At the end of each chapter, we went over the words, and she asked questions about words she did not understand. I felt it was a pretty good system, because she started employing the things we went over in what she was reading next.
We did this for the rest of the time, and I felt it went well. She was very engaging and was asking questions, and I was able to make a log of common mistakes she was making, and giver it to her to keep in mind. She wants to read the book "Little Women" next, and we got about a chapter in before time ran out, so we are going to keep on reading that next week... that is if she has not finished it by them. I encouraged her to read as much as she wanted. All in all I think it went very well, and I look forward to next week!
By this time, I could tell that she spoke excellently, so I moved on and we started talking about writing, reading and grammar. We soon got on the topic of reading, and how much she loved it, so I asked her what she liked to read, and she pulled out a book she had been going through. It was the illustrated classics version of Journey to the Center of the Earth... the same kind I had growing up, so we decided that she would read it out loud, and I would listed and help her with words. As she started reading, I started making notes of different words she either mispronounced, or needed help with. At the end of each chapter, we went over the words, and she asked questions about words she did not understand. I felt it was a pretty good system, because she started employing the things we went over in what she was reading next.
We did this for the rest of the time, and I felt it went well. She was very engaging and was asking questions, and I was able to make a log of common mistakes she was making, and giver it to her to keep in mind. She wants to read the book "Little Women" next, and we got about a chapter in before time ran out, so we are going to keep on reading that next week... that is if she has not finished it by them. I encouraged her to read as much as she wanted. All in all I think it went very well, and I look forward to next week!
Sounds like a fun tutee. I think it's great you gave her an error log to keep with her. I also think it's good you let her choose the book and that her new vocab and pronunciation problems are surfacing as she does something she is intrinsically motivated to do.
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