Tyler is an 8 year old boy in the 3rd grade. He is autistic and nonverbal. I first met Tyler when he was in kindergarten, about 2 years ago, when his mom was looking for someone to help him with letters, words, and writing. I was still a student when I met Tyler and his mom,and extremely nervous since I had never, until this point, worked one on one with a child diagnosed with autism. I knew about autism, and had written papers on autism, and even consulted with a teacher on how to adapt her classroom to better accomodate one of her students who was diagnoed with autism. But I am certainly no expert, and this was (and continues to be) a learning experience.
Because Tyler is nonverbal, it is difficult to guage how much he knows. Two years ago I started out with matching words to pictures and discovered that he could read some words simply becuse he could match them without my saying anything. Such as matching the word 'red' with the actual color. (I'm sure his teachers knew this, but it was new to his mother and I). Since then, we've gone from matching words to pictures, to matching sentences to pictures, and onto spelling words and forming sentences. Tyler is an incredibly bright boy, and he was able skip the second grade this year and move right into third grade.
For the past few weeks, Tyler has been working on forming short sentences using small cards with words on them (like 'We' 'go' 'to' 'the' 'I' 'make' 'a' 'run') as well as some pictures of things such as a store or a sandwich. We also work on spelling these words, as well as others. Many of the tasks are in matching or chart format, since that seems to be the most effective way to instruct Tyler (and to know how much he knows). For spelling, Tyler is given a piece of cardstock paper with two attached boxes for two letter words, or one with three attached boxes for three letter words. Tyler is then given several squares of paper with one letter on them each (I make these squares to fit perfectly into the boxes; if they don't, Tyler spends extra time trying to make them fit...this can induce stress for him, which makes him less inclined to want to work with me). Tyler struggles with spelling, since it involves blending the different sounds in words. When given letters to choose from, and given a sound, Tyler is able to correctly choose the right letter associated with the given sound. However, when told to spell a word, he becomes frustrated ad stalls until the word is repeated and broken down into the separate sounds. Having the letters available to choose from helps him a little, and last week he was able to spell 'to' 'we' 'go' 'is' and 'fun' without any prompting and assistance from me.
Tyler's teacher and speech pathologist have also indicated that Tyler needs to work on forming his own sentences (such as telling about something he did recently), as well as being able to answer "who" and "what" questions. For the next few weeks we will be focusing on these two things, as well as spelling three and four letter words.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Sean and Brian
These little guys are brothers, ages 8 and 6. Sean is in second grade and Brian is in Kindergarten. I started tutoring Sean about two years ago, because he was having difficulty with fluency and reading comprehension. He was held back in first grade. Brian was also kept back and is repeating Kindergarten. Brian seemed to be progressing really well when I started tutoring him at the beginning of this school year, and I really thought he didn't need me. However, the last two months he seems to have plateaued, and is having the same difficulties his brother had when he was younger (fluency and comprehension).
I usually start with Brian, while Sean finishes his homework. Brian's homework consists of him reading passages out of his Orton-Gillingham workbook (his district uses the Orton-Gillingham method), so we work on those, focusing on the sounds of that day. Today we worked on blending 'bl,' (like the word 'black'), using 'y' as a long 'i' (like in 'shy' and 'my'), and attaching past tense 'ed' to words (like in 'packed' and 'patched'). He has a lot of difficulty with fluency (as I said before), and so we were working on reading some of the phrases that had words he has already mastered (like "she is in") in a more fluent and natural tone. We also went through some of his words of the week (into, book, can't, my) and I included some of his past words (top, she), as well as the words he'll need for next week (think, great, say, cut). I also included a word ('each') that was in some of the passages, and with which he was having a lot of difficulty ("ea- says eeeee"). He did pretty well with all of the words; he does such a great job sounding out, and his memory is great when it comes to not-so-obvious sounds, like pairing 'ch' for a new sound. The last thing we worked on was Lesson 4 of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I think these lessons are so helpful for Brian since it really emphasizes fluidly sounding out words, as opposed to the choppy way he has become so accustomed to. (I know the Orton-Gillingham method teaches using your fingers for each sound in a word, as though you are counting the sounds, and I think that's really helpful for a child to say each sound in a word but Brian still pronounces words he already knows by saying each sound with a pause in between before saying the full word fluently).
While I was still working with Brian, Sean finished his homework, and I encouraged him to check it. He often rushes through it so fast he misses some important directions and needs to make a number of corrections. Usually he claims he has not made any mistakes, and has a lot of difficulty finding them when prompted. But today when I gave him back his paper, he found his first mistake almost immediately. (Woohoo! Progress!) I still had to work with him on some other mistakes, and he needed help reading through some of the questions and even some of the answer choices (how can a child complete his math work when he can't read the words 'trapezoid' and 'congruent?'). I also had brought him The Adventures of Captain Underpants, Book 1, by Dav Pilkey, which I picked up at the used bookstore (Used Books & More) for $1.00! Sean had been talking about his friends reading the books and liking them, but he could never seem to find it at his school library. While I was still working with Brian, Sean read through the first 5 chapters (they aren't very long, but still...he's reading a book!). After we had gone over his homework, I had Sean do Lesson 9 of the 100 Easy Lessons book. He is beyond many of these beginning lessons, and goes through them quickly, but since he has had such a history of having difficulty with fluency, I think these lessons reteach the basics and help fill in some of the missing pieces of the foundation that was built when he first started learning how to read. Regardless if this is true or not, he thinks the 'say it fast' games are pretty fun, and it gives him a huge boost of confidence to be good at something that has to do with reading.
I usually start with Brian, while Sean finishes his homework. Brian's homework consists of him reading passages out of his Orton-Gillingham workbook (his district uses the Orton-Gillingham method), so we work on those, focusing on the sounds of that day. Today we worked on blending 'bl,' (like the word 'black'), using 'y' as a long 'i' (like in 'shy' and 'my'), and attaching past tense 'ed' to words (like in 'packed' and 'patched'). He has a lot of difficulty with fluency (as I said before), and so we were working on reading some of the phrases that had words he has already mastered (like "she is in") in a more fluent and natural tone. We also went through some of his words of the week (into, book, can't, my) and I included some of his past words (top, she), as well as the words he'll need for next week (think, great, say, cut). I also included a word ('each') that was in some of the passages, and with which he was having a lot of difficulty ("ea- says eeeee"). He did pretty well with all of the words; he does such a great job sounding out, and his memory is great when it comes to not-so-obvious sounds, like pairing 'ch' for a new sound. The last thing we worked on was Lesson 4 of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I think these lessons are so helpful for Brian since it really emphasizes fluidly sounding out words, as opposed to the choppy way he has become so accustomed to. (I know the Orton-Gillingham method teaches using your fingers for each sound in a word, as though you are counting the sounds, and I think that's really helpful for a child to say each sound in a word but Brian still pronounces words he already knows by saying each sound with a pause in between before saying the full word fluently).
While I was still working with Brian, Sean finished his homework, and I encouraged him to check it. He often rushes through it so fast he misses some important directions and needs to make a number of corrections. Usually he claims he has not made any mistakes, and has a lot of difficulty finding them when prompted. But today when I gave him back his paper, he found his first mistake almost immediately. (Woohoo! Progress!) I still had to work with him on some other mistakes, and he needed help reading through some of the questions and even some of the answer choices (how can a child complete his math work when he can't read the words 'trapezoid' and 'congruent?'). I also had brought him The Adventures of Captain Underpants, Book 1, by Dav Pilkey, which I picked up at the used bookstore (Used Books & More) for $1.00! Sean had been talking about his friends reading the books and liking them, but he could never seem to find it at his school library. While I was still working with Brian, Sean read through the first 5 chapters (they aren't very long, but still...he's reading a book!). After we had gone over his homework, I had Sean do Lesson 9 of the 100 Easy Lessons book. He is beyond many of these beginning lessons, and goes through them quickly, but since he has had such a history of having difficulty with fluency, I think these lessons reteach the basics and help fill in some of the missing pieces of the foundation that was built when he first started learning how to read. Regardless if this is true or not, he thinks the 'say it fast' games are pretty fun, and it gives him a huge boost of confidence to be good at something that has to do with reading.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Jack
Tuesdays are Jack's days. Jack is in Kindergarten and I've been tutoring him for about a year now. He has made so much progress it's mind boggling. When I first met him, we were going over shapes and letter recognition, something other children his age had already mastered a year before. Now, approaching the end of the school year and getting ready for first grade, Jack can sing the alphabet without forgetting any letters (yay!), he can name the sounds of most of the letters automatically (he still has to think about some, and often gets 'b' and 'd' confused...but what 5 year old boy doesn't?), and can recognize and sound out over 15 words (BIG YAY!). Jack is confusing to his teachers, since he progresses more slowly than many of his peers, but his evaluations have indicated that he is in the average range cognitvely, and that he does not appear to have a learning disability. My training as a school psychologist kicks in at this point and I can foresee Jack falling farther and farther behind his peers as he progresses in school and everyone starts to read fluently except for him, and by second or third grade he will probably have much lower academic scores than the other students in his class, which will then prompt another evaluation (already they are doing a second evaluation at the end of this year), and he will most likely be diagnosed with a learning disability in order to receive services he should be receiving now (in order to prevent his falling behind). All of this will most likely happen UNLESS he can be taught to overcome, and/or accommodate for, some of his weaknesses now...which is where I come in as his reading tutor.
For the past few weeks I've been letting Jack play some games on pbskids.org for the first few minutes of his hour. I started doing this because he often would arrive at my house crying, and I would have to pick him up and carry him into the living room (kicking and screaming) while his mom snuck out the door. He likes the computer games, finds them more fun than the work I have for him (I'm still working on that...) and it calms him down. He now also appears to like coming to see me, and often has a smile for me when he arrives (how refreshing!).
This week, however, I took out the computer time since I had a new task to try with him. He seemed a little disappointed, so I don't think I'll completely take computer time away for good just yet, but he settled down on the rug and was ready to get to work. I should mention that Jack has difficulty writing his letters still (Occupational Therapy was one of the things he was being evaluated for last year, but the school district decided he did not need that service). The new task I had for him consisted of using these nicely made thick, but flat, plastic... hmmm...cards? I'm actually not sure what to call them. But they have lower case sandpaper letters on them. The Director (and teacher), Lindsi, at the Montessori preschool where I am an aide (for a wonderful little girl who is blind) suggested I try these with Jack. By tracing his fingers along the oversize tactile letters, we not only worked on beginning sounds (I had pictures of animals accompany the letters), but he was practicing moving his fingers and hand in the shape of the letter (fine motor skills!). The first letter we did, 'c,' he tried to twist his wrist so that as his fingers followed the curve they went from pointing up to pointing down. Not only did this look uncomfortable for him, it was not what I wanted him to do. I had to show him how to keep his wrist straight and fingers pointing in one direction as he followed the letter. He became better at it as we did more letters. In all, the letters we worked on were: c, s, t, f, d, and b. With each letter he had to tell me the name of the letter, what sound it made, and then point out whatever pictures started with that sound (cat, dog, tiger, fish, etc.). He confused the 'd' and 'b' regularly throughout this exercise, and even had some trouble finding the pictures beginning with the sound we were working on at the moment (he also did not recognize the tiger and called it a lion), but I think it was a very useful and helpful task for him. He also insisted on rhyming some of the words we used (like dog and frog) since he was so excited for winning a rhyming game today in school (he beat all the kids in his class!). It was really great to hear him ask to rhyme!
After this we moved onto doing flashcards with the sightwords: the, to, go, like, you, and, I, is, am, me, and it. This time last month he was able to do maybe half of these words, and had to really think and struggle with them in order to get them. Today he was able to whip right through, struggling only with 'and,' 'it,' and 'me.' He did so well that at the end of the session I even added a new word, 'man,' and we sounded it out together and mixed it in with the other words. He read through all of them with no problems!
After sight words, we read the first several pages of Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman, and I had Jack read out loud some of his sightwords, and we also sounded out other words like 'big,' and 'dog.' He did really well with this task and actually did not want to end it, but I wanted to move on before we ran out of time. So we marked the page where we left off, and he made sure we would pick right back up next week. :)
The last task I had for him was Lessons 8 and 9 out of the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons book, by Siegfried Engelmann, Phyllis Haddox, and Elaine Bruner. I started doing these lessons several weeks ago after watching Lindsi (from the preschool) use the book with some of her students. I'm really liking the simplicity of the lessons, and how they are very repetitive and focused on the sounds of letters and how those sounds mesh together in words. These lessons, which only take a few minutes each, are perfect for Jack since it really targets the skills in which he needs the most help.
After finishing with another round of sightwords (and adding 'man') I read a couple of chapters of Captain Underpants (he loves these books) before his mom came to pick him up. Overall, he did really well today, and I was so happy to give his mother a good report. I feel bad for her sometimes because she often comes to my house to drop him off with news of bad reports from school. I think one of his greatest improvements over the past year has been his behavior. As long as he is happy, he is able to interact with me and successfully complete the tasks I have for him. On bad-mood days, if he shuts down it's all over before it even began. As he becomes more and more successful on the tasks he is being given, I'm seeing his level of confidence (and his mood) stay up.
For the past few weeks I've been letting Jack play some games on pbskids.org for the first few minutes of his hour. I started doing this because he often would arrive at my house crying, and I would have to pick him up and carry him into the living room (kicking and screaming) while his mom snuck out the door. He likes the computer games, finds them more fun than the work I have for him (I'm still working on that...) and it calms him down. He now also appears to like coming to see me, and often has a smile for me when he arrives (how refreshing!).
This week, however, I took out the computer time since I had a new task to try with him. He seemed a little disappointed, so I don't think I'll completely take computer time away for good just yet, but he settled down on the rug and was ready to get to work. I should mention that Jack has difficulty writing his letters still (Occupational Therapy was one of the things he was being evaluated for last year, but the school district decided he did not need that service). The new task I had for him consisted of using these nicely made thick, but flat, plastic... hmmm...cards? I'm actually not sure what to call them. But they have lower case sandpaper letters on them. The Director (and teacher), Lindsi, at the Montessori preschool where I am an aide (for a wonderful little girl who is blind) suggested I try these with Jack. By tracing his fingers along the oversize tactile letters, we not only worked on beginning sounds (I had pictures of animals accompany the letters), but he was practicing moving his fingers and hand in the shape of the letter (fine motor skills!). The first letter we did, 'c,' he tried to twist his wrist so that as his fingers followed the curve they went from pointing up to pointing down. Not only did this look uncomfortable for him, it was not what I wanted him to do. I had to show him how to keep his wrist straight and fingers pointing in one direction as he followed the letter. He became better at it as we did more letters. In all, the letters we worked on were: c, s, t, f, d, and b. With each letter he had to tell me the name of the letter, what sound it made, and then point out whatever pictures started with that sound (cat, dog, tiger, fish, etc.). He confused the 'd' and 'b' regularly throughout this exercise, and even had some trouble finding the pictures beginning with the sound we were working on at the moment (he also did not recognize the tiger and called it a lion), but I think it was a very useful and helpful task for him. He also insisted on rhyming some of the words we used (like dog and frog) since he was so excited for winning a rhyming game today in school (he beat all the kids in his class!). It was really great to hear him ask to rhyme!
After this we moved onto doing flashcards with the sightwords: the, to, go, like, you, and, I, is, am, me, and it. This time last month he was able to do maybe half of these words, and had to really think and struggle with them in order to get them. Today he was able to whip right through, struggling only with 'and,' 'it,' and 'me.' He did so well that at the end of the session I even added a new word, 'man,' and we sounded it out together and mixed it in with the other words. He read through all of them with no problems!
After sight words, we read the first several pages of Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman, and I had Jack read out loud some of his sightwords, and we also sounded out other words like 'big,' and 'dog.' He did really well with this task and actually did not want to end it, but I wanted to move on before we ran out of time. So we marked the page where we left off, and he made sure we would pick right back up next week. :)
The last task I had for him was Lessons 8 and 9 out of the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons book, by Siegfried Engelmann, Phyllis Haddox, and Elaine Bruner. I started doing these lessons several weeks ago after watching Lindsi (from the preschool) use the book with some of her students. I'm really liking the simplicity of the lessons, and how they are very repetitive and focused on the sounds of letters and how those sounds mesh together in words. These lessons, which only take a few minutes each, are perfect for Jack since it really targets the skills in which he needs the most help.
After finishing with another round of sightwords (and adding 'man') I read a couple of chapters of Captain Underpants (he loves these books) before his mom came to pick him up. Overall, he did really well today, and I was so happy to give his mother a good report. I feel bad for her sometimes because she often comes to my house to drop him off with news of bad reports from school. I think one of his greatest improvements over the past year has been his behavior. As long as he is happy, he is able to interact with me and successfully complete the tasks I have for him. On bad-mood days, if he shuts down it's all over before it even began. As he becomes more and more successful on the tasks he is being given, I'm seeing his level of confidence (and his mood) stay up.
Sarting the tutoring blog
This is my second attempt at blogging, and maybe I'll actually stick with this one. I have been tutoring reading for over three years now, and I really absolutely love it. It's extremely rewarding to watch kids progress and get better at something, and even begin to like it! This blog is going to document my tutoring sessions each week. I find it very helpful to read through other people's thoughts and ideas when it comes to tutoring, and being able to get new ideas to try with my kids is always great! So I decided to put up all the things I do to teach kids to love reading as much as I do, and maybe someone will find my ideas useful!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)