My Tutoring Reflection
The culmination of my tutoring sessions with Amira was satisfying on several levels. When I began my tutoring with Amira, she was reserved and shy and it was difficult to engage her in conversation; I had yet to form a bond with her where she felt comfortable interacting with me. By the time I had finished my tutoring sessions with Amira, she was much less reserved and had opened up to me in a way where she felt comfortable in everyday conversation, in responding to questions and in reading aloud to me. Her personality emerged which was gratifying to observe. Amira will likely always be a shy student, but it is possible to draw her out and form a satisfactory teacher, student relationship conducive to learning.
At this point in the year, I do not have new Dibels assessment data as students will not be tested again until the beginning of 2017. Likewise, I do not have new MAPs testing data available. However, I have included copies of Amira’s progress monitoring for her Tier II intervention plan which uses the Dibels Next program.
Amira’s progress monitoring shows a steady growth. At her review on …show more content…
October 24th, she had reached her goal of a level D, but remained on the Tier II plan as she was still below the grade-level benchmark. Through most of October, she remained at an instructional D and then towards the beginning of November, she reached an instructional E. By the beginning of December, Amira was reading at an independent E and an instructional F. She is well on her way to the goal of level G in mid-January and the end of year goal of J in May. Growth towards her goal will be monitored by keeping Amira on a Tier II intervention plan for the moment. Her Tier II plan will be reviewed again in mid-January. Amira’s latest Words Their Way Spelling Inventory taken on November 2nd showed growth of only one point. She is still in long vowels.
When I began tutoring Amira, she was at an independent level C in reading, which was below the benchmark for Beginning of the Year in first grade. Amira’s MAP testing revealed a deficit in foundational reading skills, including reading comprehension, vocabulary and word structure, developmental reading skills, including concepts about print (CAP), and spelling patterns and rhyming. Regarding spelling, this was one of her strongest skills; she was in the middle of Within Word Pattern for spelling with a focus on long vowel patterns. Amira’s had phonemic awareness strategies in place to help her decode unknown words and had a firm foundation in kindergarten sight words and first quarter first-grade sight words.
Much of Amira’s weakness in reading fluency stemmed from her shyness.
The low volume of her voice made it difficult to hear her read aloud and her shyness made her reluctant to read out loud. She lacked confidence in her reading, which was presenting a barrier to growth in this area.
When I began my tutoring sessions with Amira, she set a goal for herself of moving up a reading level and stated that she wanted to be a “good reader.” Meeting her goal by moving up to an independent level E by our final session made Amira proud. I also discussed the Goldilocks strategy with Amira, so that she knew how to pick appropriate books at her level. This was a familiar concept as her teacher had discussed this in Kindergarten. It was valuable to revisit the strategy as I needed to be sure Amira was choosing books which she could be successful in reading outside of our tutoring
sessions.
Throughout the tutoring sessions, I became more aware of Amira’s difficulty with comprehension as evidenced by her MAPs data. When I would question her about a book after we had read it several times, she found it difficult to give details from the text or to explain in her own words what the story was about. This is a skill which the class was working on, yet it was proving challenging for Amira. After discussion with her teacher, I decided to add a comprehension component to some of our sessions to scaffold the instruction Amira was receiving in class. Multiple and varied strategies were implemented to help Amira with this skill. I demonstrated how to use graphic organizers such as a web to identify beginning, middle and end of a story, I explicitly showed Amira how to look at a text to orally answer questions about a story, I used a word picture match sheet that accompanied a book to help clarify her thinking and developed a sheet that asked for a sequence of events from a text. By the tenth tutoring session, Amira was more successful with the comprehension piece of our focus and can retell a story and give evidence from the text.
Overcoming Amira’s shyness in reading and her quiet nature was challenging; she had little confidence in her reading ability and would constantly hesitate and look at me during the reading. Our first few weeks were slow going as I worked diligently to build Amira’s confidence with plenty of positivity and affirmation of a job well-done at each session. Engaging her in conversation was difficult as I would frequently get one-word answers. As Amira became more comfortable with me and we developed a routine, she started to talk more and with plenty of encouragement, began to read in a louder voice which was an accomplishment as I could finally hear her! Once Amira found her voice, quite literally, she learned to read with expression and began to take pleasure in reading aloud; she used punctuation to guide her in knowing when to deliver a line with emphasis and did this effectively.
Re-reading familiar books was a confidence builder for Amira. I used the same text for two sessions, the second session with the familiar book providing a level of comfort and familiarity with the text that allowed Amira to feel successful. While I did not have an opportunity to use a book of poetry as I had planned, one of the books I chose for Amira, Autumn Leaves are Falling Down, was poetic in nature and used repeated patterns in the same way that poetry does.
Amira enjoyed the word sorts and vocabulary activities I incorporated into my tutoring sessions. She particularly enjoyed manipulating letter tiles and the onset and rime cards. The hands-on activities I feel are beneficial as they allow students to make a visual connection to word construction through a kinetic activity which I believe cements learning for students. Our culminating activity was a file folder game which Amira enjoyed thoroughly, she was quite competitive and thrilled when she reached the finish line first.
These tutoring sessions were beneficial for me as they allowed me to put into practice what I learned in class. While I still do not yet feel completely confident in this area, I believe that time and more opportunities to work with students will remedy that feeling. I was gratified that Amira showed growth over our sessions and that she overcame some of her shyness. My proudest moment, however came on our last session together when one of the activities I asked Amira to do was to draw a picture about her life and write a sentence. What emerged was a picture of herself reading underneath which she wrote, “here I was, reading.”
At this point in the year, I do not have new Dibels assessment data as students will not be tested again until the beginning of 2017. Likewise, I do not have new MAPs testing data available. However, I have included copies of Amira’s progress monitoring for her Tier II intervention plan which uses the Dibels Next program.
Amira’s progress monitoring shows a steady growth. At her review on …show more content…
October 24th, she had reached her goal of a level D, but remained on the Tier II plan as she was still below the grade-level benchmark. Through most of October, she remained at an instructional D and then towards the beginning of November, she reached an instructional E. By the beginning of December, Amira was reading at an independent E and an instructional F. She is well on her way to the goal of level G in mid-January and the end of year goal of J in May. Growth towards her goal will be monitored by keeping Amira on a Tier II intervention plan for the moment. Her Tier II plan will be reviewed again in mid-January. Amira’s latest Words Their Way Spelling Inventory taken on November 2nd showed growth of only one point. She is still in long vowels.
When I began tutoring Amira, she was at an independent level C in reading, which was below the benchmark for Beginning of the Year in first grade. Amira’s MAP testing revealed a deficit in foundational reading skills, including reading comprehension, vocabulary and word structure, developmental reading skills, including concepts about print (CAP), and spelling patterns and rhyming. Regarding spelling, this was one of her strongest skills; she was in the middle of Within Word Pattern for spelling with a focus on long vowel patterns. Amira’s had phonemic awareness strategies in place to help her decode unknown words and had a firm foundation in kindergarten sight words and first quarter first-grade sight words.
Much of Amira’s weakness in reading fluency stemmed from her shyness.
The low volume of her voice made it difficult to hear her read aloud and her shyness made her reluctant to read out loud. She lacked confidence in her reading, which was presenting a barrier to growth in this area.
When I began my tutoring sessions with Amira, she set a goal for herself of moving up a reading level and stated that she wanted to be a “good reader.” Meeting her goal by moving up to an independent level E by our final session made Amira proud. I also discussed the Goldilocks strategy with Amira, so that she knew how to pick appropriate books at her level. This was a familiar concept as her teacher had discussed this in Kindergarten. It was valuable to revisit the strategy as I needed to be sure Amira was choosing books which she could be successful in reading outside of our tutoring
sessions.
Throughout the tutoring sessions, I became more aware of Amira’s difficulty with comprehension as evidenced by her MAPs data. When I would question her about a book after we had read it several times, she found it difficult to give details from the text or to explain in her own words what the story was about. This is a skill which the class was working on, yet it was proving challenging for Amira. After discussion with her teacher, I decided to add a comprehension component to some of our sessions to scaffold the instruction Amira was receiving in class. Multiple and varied strategies were implemented to help Amira with this skill. I demonstrated how to use graphic organizers such as a web to identify beginning, middle and end of a story, I explicitly showed Amira how to look at a text to orally answer questions about a story, I used a word picture match sheet that accompanied a book to help clarify her thinking and developed a sheet that asked for a sequence of events from a text. By the tenth tutoring session, Amira was more successful with the comprehension piece of our focus and can retell a story and give evidence from the text.
Overcoming Amira’s shyness in reading and her quiet nature was challenging; she had little confidence in her reading ability and would constantly hesitate and look at me during the reading. Our first few weeks were slow going as I worked diligently to build Amira’s confidence with plenty of positivity and affirmation of a job well-done at each session. Engaging her in conversation was difficult as I would frequently get one-word answers. As Amira became more comfortable with me and we developed a routine, she started to talk more and with plenty of encouragement, began to read in a louder voice which was an accomplishment as I could finally hear her! Once Amira found her voice, quite literally, she learned to read with expression and began to take pleasure in reading aloud; she used punctuation to guide her in knowing when to deliver a line with emphasis and did this effectively.
Re-reading familiar books was a confidence builder for Amira. I used the same text for two sessions, the second session with the familiar book providing a level of comfort and familiarity with the text that allowed Amira to feel successful. While I did not have an opportunity to use a book of poetry as I had planned, one of the books I chose for Amira, Autumn Leaves are Falling Down, was poetic in nature and used repeated patterns in the same way that poetry does.
Amira enjoyed the word sorts and vocabulary activities I incorporated into my tutoring sessions. She particularly enjoyed manipulating letter tiles and the onset and rime cards. The hands-on activities I feel are beneficial as they allow students to make a visual connection to word construction through a kinetic activity which I believe cements learning for students. Our culminating activity was a file folder game which Amira enjoyed thoroughly, she was quite competitive and thrilled when she reached the finish line first.
These tutoring sessions were beneficial for me as they allowed me to put into practice what I learned in class. While I still do not yet feel completely confident in this area, I believe that time and more opportunities to work with students will remedy that feeling. I was gratified that Amira showed growth over our sessions and that she overcame some of her shyness. My proudest moment, however came on our last session together when one of the activities I asked Amira to do was to draw a picture about her life and write a sentence. What emerged was a picture of herself reading underneath which she wrote, “here I was, reading.”