TP 8: Caitlin

This week when I met with PJ, we had two things on our agenda: vocabulary building and reading. We were going over the vocabulary words that were on a worksheet of PJ’s that he had had some trouble with. I made flashcards and had two vocabulary games for him. The first game was a quick matching game. PJ knew all the words but didn’t realize how some words were connected. For example, he explained to me what start and begin means but he didn’t realize that they are synonyms before this activity. He really liked the second activity. I used the whiteboard and drew a big cloud with a word bank. I put random words and PJ had to find the 3 words that had something in common. PJ was supposed to move the words that had something in common to a circle on the board and “put” the other words in the trashcan that I had drawn.  In the first round, there was one group of words. In the second round, he had to find 2 groups of words with something in common and tell me why they went together. The last round was the trickiest. There was only one group of 3 words but several pairs of two words He really liked this activity and was able to match all of the words that he had gotten wrong on his homework assignment. PJ didn’t know that my word lists came from his old assignment. I introduced the list as some words that he probably would know and introduced the activity as a vocabulary refresher activity.

 We spent 30 minutes reading this session. I could tell that PJ was getting a little tired towards the end but he is definitely more engaged when we alternate pages. I thought about it and as important as it is for me to hear him reading, I hate reading out loud and I comprehend a lot less than when I read silently so I can understand why it’s easier for him to comprehend when we read together.