I met my tutee, David, at
the LCL library. David is 9 and
has a twin brother. He and his
family speak Korean at home. At
first, David did not want to give me any eye contact. His mother, Sarah, a lovely lady, instructed me that she
would like David to work on reading comprehension. I had some books with me, and they were on various
levels. He also had 4 books with
him when we met.
We started by reading in one
of the books out loud. He could
pronounce most of the words correctly, but he did not pay any attention to
punctuation at the end of the sentences.
He read one sentence after another until he almost ran out of breath,
then he stopped. I explained to
him and he did better from that point on.
He mispronounced “expect”, but when I asked him what that word was, he
was able to pronounce it correctly.
When I asked him if he understood the meaning, he did, and gave me an example
when I prompted him to. He had a
hard time pronouncing “specifically”.
We went over it a few times, he was much better at it. We went over its meaning, using an
example. We read a few pages of
another book that was just a little more difficult than the first. I read some more to him. He retold what I read, and his
comprehension was about 80-85 %. We
had an exercise in which he wrote down what he did in school that day. His sentences were very short, but good. We went over his paragraph, and he
explained to me in details.
We talked about how often he
and his brother come to the library.
Because I don’t have little ones at home, I wondered what the contents
were of two of the four books he brought.
They looked cartoonish from the covers. I asked him to read out loud from the first page, and we had
to stop (because I believe those books will not be a good influence for a boy
of 9). His two other books
included one on “Star Wars” and one on a very famous pop singer (who actually
died from drug overdose and who had criminal charges and tons of issues in
life).
We didn’t have time to work on
other exercises I brought. When
the session was over, I talked to David and his mother, Sarah. I told David that three of those books
are not good for him. I encouraged
him to read books that will help him to grow to be the best that he can be. Sarah told me that she wants to
encourage her boys to read a lot. I
shared with her that my daughters would have never been allowed to read those
books when they were at his age, or even older. I understand that, due to the language barrier, Sarah
doesn’t know what her boys are reading.
She told me that a lot of her son’s friends want to read those
books. I encouraged her to have
her sons read books that can influence them to be the best they can be and to
be able to contribute to society. I shared that reading about people who have
done that in various ways would be helpful. We looked at the section of biographies for his reading
level. Sarah was very appreciative.
I have a better
understanding of how to prepare for my next lessons with David. I will find books that will help him work
on building his vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. At the same time, they will be books
that will inspire him to dream…
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