This week was a busy week. We had over 20 sessions and we had 4-5 new parents interested in signing up their children. Since the schedule is so tight, I had to put students on a waiting list. I have been expecting this for several weeks, but each week, the schedule seems to work itself out, until this week. We also have our first high school student coming for tutoring needing help in geometry – I guess I will need to brush up on geometry skills!
One new student that came this week, a first grader, really grabbed my attention. She came crying, not wanting to stay – something that has not happened so far. As I began working with her, I began to see that she is in need of far more then homework help. Each year in teaching, I would have at least one student, no matter what grade I taught, that would come with little to no skills. Unfortunately, this young lady is of the same type. She came two times this week, and after the first time, I told her parents not to bring her homework, because I would help her catch up on the skills she is lacking. As I was working with her the first time, I observed an interesting exchange between her older sister and herself (her older sister had stayed to comfort her). The older sister told her the words as she was reading to me. I asked the older sister to go sit down away from us to that I could help her sister. After working with her a couple times and seeing her family interact with her, it was pretty apparent that her family tends to “baby” her and give her all the answers when she is stuck. This has caused her to work at about a pre-school or beginning kindergarten level.
I mentioned to this student that she needs to tell her family not to tell her the answers and I will also mention this to her parents. It is very sad, but their good intentions of helping their sister or daughter, has caused her to drop drastically behind. The first area I will work on is learning the letter sounds; another area she struggles in is blending or sounding out – even two letter words are difficult for her. She has a long way to go, but I glad for the opportunity to work with her.
Next week, we will be closed due to the school schedule and Thanksgiving. For this reason, I will not post a blog next week, but will on December 5th. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
