What is tutoring? What is reading?

I tutor. What does that mean?  Tutoring to many people means doing the same thing that has been done before just working at the material until it is learned.  This does seem to work for some people.  However, it does not work for too many.  When I do not understand what you are telling me, saying the information many times or in a louder voice does not make me understand.  It can make me feel that I am not really smart.  Some of my students are reading the book The Turkey Walk.  It is about a 15 year old that has been in the third grade for 4 times.  It is fiction and written during the time of walking animals to market.  There was a time that turkeys were walked to market. 
I am using this book to work on reading.  Saying a word without understanding the meaning is not reading.  Understanding a word or meaning and not being able to say the word is not reading either.
Both the ability to sound out the word or say the word and understanding the meaning of the word in the sentence is reading. 
Working with children who would learn regardless is not the way to teach children that struggle to learn.  Usually, as parents or teachers we expect a learner to be able to read a paragraph at a time.  This is the goal. Then we go on to longer reading selections as we succeed.  When a child can say the words but does not understand the meaning of the information, a paragraph is too long. 
When grammer is taught, a sentence is a complete thought.  When reading is taught to a struggling learner, one thought at a time is needed.  This is why I read a sentence and the learner reads a sentence.  We take turns reading a sentence at a time, so the thoughts are separated. This is to help them understand that each sentence is a thought.  Too many are missing this concept.  As the reader reads better, they get to read longer.  Sometimes, I forget and read too long and the learner gets lost.  Then instead of saying you missed the information, I accept the reality that I went too fast and did not teach the material in a way that the learner could learn it.  This can be slow and can take some time.  Using the balance boards again usually helps this.  I have to remember to take the time to use them. Is this my fault or the learners fault? Sometimes it is no one's fault, it is just a reality of working with someone who is learning or teaching.

The mice again

This week I was helping a student with algebra.  She wrote the problem and then the answer.  She was getting them wrong.  I told her she needed to show her work and this was not welcome advice.
When she worked on the balance boards, she struggled.  I realized she was stuck on "This is too hard,"  I realized she needed a mouse story.  I told her about the mice eating the math test and that they must be eating the work she was putting down between the problem and the answer.  This allowed her to laugh and then she could put her work down.  With the help of the balance boards and the ability to laugh, she is able to do the math and get the problems correct.  I have a happy student.
It is so much fun to see someone like math.

The mice ate my math test

I am working with a child who no longer wants to learn.  He has had good teachers but for some reason, he has given up on school.  He had a math text that he thought had too many problems so it did not get done. He refused to do even one problem because he was overwhelmed by the big test. I gave him an F and dismissed the school day.  When I went to write the next math lesson, the test was gone.
Instead of accusing him of trashing the test, I told him I was sorry but I had some really strong and hungry mice.  They had done a terrible thing.  The mice had eaten his math test. He smiled and told me that he had taken the test out and hid it.  When I asked, he volunteered that his friend came over and  he was embarrassed so he hid the test.  He told me where it was and that day he could get the test done.  I was so glad I had not told him I thought he just trashed the test.

Test taking, Teaching test taking skills

One child who was not reading and now makes the honor roll is still struggling with test taking.  This summer she is tutoring for 6 lessons to try to help with test taking.  She still does not read the words fast enough when taking a timed test at formal school.  I noticed she takes a deep breath when the word test is mentioned.  I gave her a word test and she was doing the "take a deep breath" as she said the words.
To correct this, I taught her to take a color test.  She is age 9 or 10 and knows her colors well.
I had her tell me the colors and laughed when she wondered what I was doing.  I told her I was just checking to see if she still knew her colors.  She and I have a trusting enough relationship so even when I ask her to do something that she thinks is silly, she will work with me.
Then I told her that we were going to do something really hard and it was a test.  Her eyes got larger and she took a deep breath.  Then I started holding up a color at a time and asking the color.  She laughed and I told her tests were just this easy and we were going to learn how easy they are.
I next had her read me a list of words and told her it was a test.  We practiced several of these tests so she would understand she did not have to take a deep breath or be afraid.  She was really tired.
The next week, we did the word test and I quickly told her any word she hesitated to say.  The next activity, we did was for me to have her say the words on cards as I turned them over.  She said there were too many to do all at once.  There were about 30 sets of words or 60 cards.  I just kept turning them over and soon we were finished with the stack.  I told her it was never hard to do things when we knew how to do them. 
She was doing so well, I had her do another test and told her we were going to skip the words she did not know.  I pointed to the word and if she did not say it quickly,  I went on to the next word.  She kept trying, which I did not know if she would give up or keep going.  I was really proud of her. Her mom is afraid of test taking also so we gave mom the color test too to help the child remember tests are easy.  
We have one more week and then a certificate for completion will be given.  I will check on her once school has started to see  how she is doing.  
We also stop and do the balance board when she seems to stumble with confidence.  I noticed yesterday that when she is not as confident she throws the ball at an angle instead of straight.  When I mentioned this, she gained in confidence as we practiced the information she needed when she was on the balance board.
We were counting by 2's and the ball was straight and when we counted by 3's the ball was at an angle. As she felt more confident with her 3's, the ball was straight again.
It is such a joy to see a child smile about learning.

Challenging Day at School

This past week, a young girl came to tutoring in tears.  I could tell she was trying to not cry or let me know she was upset.  She had a rough day at school.  This child has made wonderful progress in tutoring.  It took half the tutoring time for her to be able to function well. She could focus to the side but struggled to focus facing forward. My opinion is that she tried so hard in school to do what she was told she was exhausted. Therefore, her skills to focus forward had been severely taxed. She also could walk better backwards than forwards for the same reason. Mom stayed in the same room where we tutored, as the child needed mom's presence for support. 
As we were struggling for her to be able to learn, I had her take deep breaths to let out her anger, hurt feelings and fustration out. I had her take deep breaths as she lifted her shoulders and let the air out in a noisy whoosh.  Her mom spoke up and said she does this sometimes and Mom did not realize why.
Many people think tutoring is helping a child with their homework.  My tutoring is helping a child have the skills to be able to learn the work rather than helping them with the work.  When the learning skills needed to learn are underdeveloped learning is such a challenge. 
This is a child with ADHD and she had lost recess privileges and two stars for not having her pencils out for the lesson.  This needs to be addressed with an IEP meeting.  An IEP is an individual educational plan for this child.  In my opinion to take recess away from an ADHD child is like punishing someone on crutches for taking too long to open a door for themselves instead to helping them open the door. Have you ever seen anyone act impatient with someone in a wheelchair or on crutches because they slowed them down? Having been on crutches myself for two years and in a wheelchair for a time; I take the time to be thankful I can walk, as I take the time to smile and help. 

How much tutoring is enough

Today, a young lady, who was not reading when we begin tutoring two years ago, returned to tutoring.  Compared to where she was when we began two years ago she reads well.  Mom and I are ready for her to fly educationally.  She will be in the 4th grade next year.  She has an IEP. This is an individual education plan written to help her succeed. However, when she was given a test, the IEP was not used.  She was recommended for summer school to support her learning for next year.
Mom decided to tutor here instead of  summer school.  She has not retained her balance ability as well as I would have thought.  She quickly picked up the balance and tutoring should help.  I will increase the balametrics portion of tutoring. Also, I will modify the go fish word game so she will recognize the words more independently.  Instead of showing her the word as I call it, I will call the word and have her spell the word.  I was surprised how well she can do this. When she gets stuck, I give her the vowel spelling.  An example of this is the ea sound as in eagle.  We will also work more on making sentences with the words to help with understanding the different meanings of each word.
We will only work for one day a week for 6 weeks to see if this is enough support.  If not hopefully, we will work one day a week when school starts to give her the support she needs.  Some students just need more support to maintain their ability to learn efficiently.  People of all ages just have different learning needs and often our society wants everyone to learn like everyone else. When the student does not learn the way the school or teacher wants to teach, the student is blamed instead of the method of teaching.

calming a learner who is too excited to learn

Today, I worked with a struggling learner.  He is a teen and I have been working with him for months.  We have read a little over half of the second grade McGuffey reader. We are using the Kindle Fire for this because I can enlarge the words. This is still low but exciting.  He had gone with family and friends over the weekend.  He is still excited about the trip.  We did the balance board, and word go fish.  He was too excited to calm down and read well. Finally, I pulled out the skipbo cards and this helped.  We play skipbo because of the pattern training it gives us. It is not my favorite game but patterning is important to teach reading as reading is patterns. Once we played skipbo he did better.  It  amazes me the routine needed sometimes to help this young man focus.  It is so exciting to see  him succeed.  As he has more success, he gets too excited to read the words on the paper and reads what the words mean.  I told him several times that he does not get to read what he wants to unless he writes the story himself.  When someone else writes the story, he has to read their words.