TP #1 -Mark G.

On Wednesday afternoon I had the chance to get to know David, a third grader originally from South Korea. I met David and his mother at the library where she told me a little bit about his needs, as well as which subjects he excelled. She said that David knows how to read well but goes to fast and does not fully comprehend the content of what he is reading. She also informed me that David is preparing for the FCATS, so it is important that he is ready when test time comes around at the end of the year. She also informed me that David keeps a reading log/journal that he updates everyday with a new book.

David and I talked for a couple of minutes after his mom left and soon thereafter started working on his homework assignment that he had to prepare for the next day. He had to read a short short (2 pages) and then answer some questions on comprehension. I first started by having David read the whole story out loud for me and stop after every paragraph and check to see if he understood what was happening so far in the story. It was true that David ran through his sentences and did not respect punctuations faithfully, pausing accordingly whether it be an apostrophe or a period. He also had some trouble understanding some words. However, when I checked David's comprehension after every paragraph he seemed to remember well enough. When we got to the questions he got everyone of them right except the last one that was a little hard because it asked for a deeper analysis. Embarrassing enough, he even remembered stuff that I had to go back and check to see was correct. During the session we took a ten minute break and he warmed up a little more and told me some more about himself. Particularly that it was his (and his twin brothers) birthday. He also talked about what he had done during past birthdays and I noticed that he had some issue using the past tense sometimes. I look forward to working more with David and helping him with the target areas with which he needs help.