September 18, 2013
I
tutored PJ again on Wednesday. He was more distracted than any other time I’ve
spent with him. He wanted to play with a ball, so I incorporated it into our
vocabulary lesson. I began with vocabulary to make sure we got through all 10
words, and it ended up taking us the whole time. Oops!
We
began by reviewing the 4 words we had studied on Monday. PJ didn’t seem to
recall our discussion exactly, though. When I asked him about cross, he told me
(as is the most logical), “Oh, like when you cross the street.” When I reminded
him about being angry, he said, “Oh…when you are angry, you are cross” as his
sentence. I was struggling to help him create original sentences in a hands-off
way. We tossed the ball back and forth: I would write the word on the board,
and he would read it. Then I would write an example sentence and read it for
him, and then we would see if he understood it. There was so much subtlety
though! For example, I said, “I observed a squirrel in the yard.”
“Oh,”
he said, “so you can observe a game. You can observe the television.” But of
course we use the word observe to go beyond simply watching. You watch to
understand; there’s an element of studying. How to convey this to a
second-grader? I tried giving more examples, but it was tricky. He got quieter,
and I could tell he wasn’t feeling comfortable or like he was getting it right.
I need to come up with a lower stress alternative—suggestions are appreciated!
I called the night a little early, since he seemed to be dragging, and we just
chatted a little while.
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