Summary
I was
given the opportunity to tutor a struggling 5th grade reader for
three weeks. In order to reflect on my lesson planning, my teaching, and the
student’s performance and progress I created this blog that includes a summary
of each time I met with her.
When I first started with Margaret three weeks
ago, I was not sure what kind of a student or reader she was. Within the first
week I completed a running record with Margaret and was able to learn that she
was a fairly fluent reader but really struggled with pinpointing the main idea
and showing comprehension of what she was reading. This told me that I would
need to work on finding the main idea with Margaret which is a comprehension
strategy. From Margaret’s interest inventory I learned that she enjoyed
learning about animals. I had her fill out a motivation survey which told me
that she really enjoyed reading inside and outside of school but was not too
thrilled to answer questions about her reading. This might be explained by the
fact that she has trouble comprehending what she reads so answering questions
would be difficult. The most helpful pre-assessment I did was the spelling
inventory because it showed me that Margaret needed to work on the long vowel
“a” spelling pattern and long vowel “o” spelling pattern.
In the Future
Since I was able to see that
Margaret did not really struggle with fluency, the main focus in her future
should be comprehension, particularly finding the main idea. One thing her
classroom teacher might continue to work on with her is using the 5-finger
retell method to help Margaret identify the main points of a story. This can be
a quick and easy strategy that Margaret could do independently or with her
teacher for everything that she reads. Another thing Margaret’s classroom
teacher could do to support her needs is to continue practicing identifying and
using the long vowel patterns. Word sorts and word study are a good way to give
Margaret exposure to the patterns that she has been struggling with. Once she
is able to master those patterns she can move onto working on the next level of
the spelling inventory. There are many things that Margaret can do at home to
continue to develop her comprehension skills. Margaret’s parents can help her
by having her read every night. The more Margaret reads, the more background
knowledge she will gain and the better she will be able to comprehend. Another
thing her parents can do is give Margaret many opportunities to retell what she
is reading. This is an easy way to see if Margaret is retaining what she is
reading and able to identify the main idea. Margaret is not a lost cause and
could really benefit from lots of exposure and practice.
What I Learned
I have
learned so much from this experience even though it was a short opportunity. I
know that one-on-one is a lot different than teaching a whole class but I
learned a lot of valuable things about creating lessons for one students’
needs. It was not always easy to know what activities would best benefit
Margaret’s needs but I learned how repeated meetings with Margaret really gave
me a good idea about what she was struggling with and what she needed the most
help with. I also learned a lot about lesson planning. It’s important to make
sure that the activities and assessment line up with the objective that I want
the student to meet. Also writing two lesson plans a week was a lot more than I
have ever had to do so that was something new that I learned. One of the most
important things that I learned was how repeated exposure to strategies is the
best way to ensure growth in struggling areas. Since I was able to work with
Margaret one-on-one in the areas that she struggled with twice a week she
really made gains in those specific areas. This tutoring was a really fun and
great learning experience for me as a teacher and for Margaret.