We started on a page about simple machines, and how some animals use their body parts like some simple machines to do various things (ex. a beaver's teeth are like a wedge). I wrote down various types of simple machines on a sheet of paper and gave several examples before asking Jun to come up with some of his own. He was able to come up with many examples for wheels and wedges, but others were problematic. Following this lesson, we started a chapter on magnetism. I tried to teach him about the poles on a magnet, the difference between the terms 'attract' and 'repel', and metals that magnets attract. As seen above, the text gives the example of magnets attracting only certain objects. After Jun read this page and we talked about the pictures, I closed the book and asked him to give examples of objects that magnets attract and objects that magnets do not attract. This is where Jun started to lose focus, as he was not able to recall any of the objects from the page he'd just read.
We moved on to a book about garter snakes, on which he has a reading quiz in school this week. As usual, he read through the book and I stopped him along the way to ask him questions. He was able to answer some questions, but others were very tricky for him, even though I didn't think they would be. One of the pages talked about how garter snakes have a "stinky defense" called "musk" that they release when they are being attacked by predators. The word "musk" was on this page at least three times. I closed the book after he read the page and asked him, "Ok Jun, what is the name of the stinky defense used by garter snakes?" All he responded was, "I don't know." This is just an example, but it happened several other times throughout the book. I was patient, but frustrated. Jun is not usually that unfocused, so I'm hoping this night was just an anomaly. Jun's mother and I have rescheduled our last two meetings for Friday nights, so I will see Jun for a second time this week.
That does sound pretty frustrating. That hasn't happened very much to me with Jun, but it has before, and I felt a bit frustrated too. I just had to explain it again and then ask more questions. The redundancy makes me feel impatient, but I don't show it. It helps to physically demonstrate some of the concepts too.
ReplyDeleteSee if it would help if you did some focused reading activities - read a couple of pages quickly before having him read them, and give him two or three questions to find answers for. Then, either ask him the questions, or have him retell those pages and see if some of those answers show up in his summary. Also, make him stand up. Make it a game. As long as he is able to answer correctly, he gets to sit. If he comes up empty, his chair gets empty again until the next successful listening comprehension answer.
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