Friday, May 27, 2011

Slow down and listen

     Thursday's tutoring was interesting.  This means I am not sure I can explain what happened.  First, the kids dog managed to get sprayed by a skunk.  How can this possibly affect tutoring? First, there is a smell that comes with the dog and the kid felt sorry for the dog and let him come with him.  This means we cannot read outside with the dog there. Next, the dog rubs on the boy's pants so a slight smell comes in the house with the boy. This smell causes the kids allergies to act up so there is coughing and sneezing.  
     Now add a tutor who is excited about how well the boy did on Wednesday at tutoring and does not notice the warning signs that she needs to slow down. The boy still did well on the more difficult balance board. At this point the tutor should have had the boy work in the rocket phonics book.  Instead, I tried the second lesson in Hooked on Phonics and the boy struggled. As a result, we did not read or listen to the tape in the house..  He nor I felt as good when he went home as the day before. Thankfully, I stopped before we undid the trust he has in me.
     Today on Friday, I had to take a step back and allow the boy to step back also.  The balance board went well and I had him do the one long division problem.. I had him decide which number we should chose to divide with so he could regain the control he needs to learn. He chose 9.  Then I drew the division symbol and let him chose the numbers to divide the 9 into.  I realize I will need to use colored pencils to write the numbers to teach him math. Then we went back to the rocket phonics book and he did well.  He likes the computer so he was willing to try the hooked on phonics again. I had him go back and do lesson one again. I controlled the computer so he could get more out of it and also have to tell me what he was doing verbally. This way he used more of the senses to learn with.  Monday is a holiday, so we will see on Tuesday how things go.

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