Jodie - TP Child #2

I met with David again at LCL library.  He didn’t want to have the session at first. Sarah, his mother, asked me to help him some more with reading comprehension.  After much persuasion by his mother, he finally sat down with me for our session.  He wanted to read the 6 cartoon books that he had with him.  

Since the books were not appropriate for our session, he read one of the books I prepared for him to read. (I had prepared materials for him prior to the session after consulting with the children’s librarian).  He read out loud and had a few errors in pronunciation.  When I pointed out the mispronounced words, most of the time he would correct himself.  He had trouble with the word “entire” and a few other words.  After I pointed out to him that he could break the syllables apart, he was able to sound out most of the words that he missed.  We would read a few paragraphs, and I would check on his comprehension.  He also had to listen carefully to the comprehension questions that I had created for him using multiple choice and true/false questions.

We then took turns reading another book.  He was able to retell the story in his own words for several paragraphs at a time.  Next, he wrote a paragraph about his day.  When I asked him to read what he wrote out loud to me, he pronounced “read” the same for both the present and the past tense.  I helped him understand the difference in pronunciation.  We also worked on other grammatical errors as well.

David seemed to be burned out from school and tutoring.  His mother told me that her two boys have tutoring everyday after school.  He had a hard time concentrating in the session.  He asked every so often “How many more minutes before I can go.” He also was very tired after a very long week, yawning often.  

It is very difficult to teach someone who does not want to learn.  I was unable to do the variety of things I had planned for the session due to the problems of David being tired and unmotivated.