Bobby - TP_child 4

I am still working with Jun on his reading comprehension, and I must say, this past tutoring session was really a struggle. I'm not sure why, but Jun was really unfocused last night. His comprehension was very affected by his inattentiveness, and it only got worse as the hour went on. The beginning was not so bad. We read through a lesson on simple machines and, later, magnetism in his science textbook.

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.