NALC Meeting 5

On November 1, 2011 I was able to tutor a new student at 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Since he had just been evaluated by the program, I was able to start off with a new textbook and lesson plan. Quickly I asserted that the student was a bit shy in reading and actually needed help with the first few words. I had to adjust my tempo and enthusiasm to match the situation. I feel like I did a good job of recognizing the opportunity to teach basic fundamentals. Throughout the rest of the session, we were able to connect as friends and move through lessons 2 through lesson 5 which include about 6 words per lesson giving emphasis to the first letter and sound. Pronunciation was not an issue with the student because he was born and raised in the United States here in TN. He was very nice and easy to get along we. We connected on letters and sounds with basically just picking up the linking time between recognizing what the first letter is and the ending's sound by that first letter. The pictures did help as we worked through each lesson's vocabulary words. From there we worked on writing the letters and picking out words from a selected reading in the book. The sentences were very similar basically reading "This is a cup." Designating the "th" in "this" between the "th" in "the" gave the student a quick memory bank of stored terms. From there throughout the session we build on "is" as well as running through the other terms.
I think a valuable sidestep was going through numbers one through ten and letting the student always read first as was done throughout the entire session. The student was encouraged throughout the session to really focus on each word and mastering a level of basic words. We went through to page 18 in a brand new book going all the way through "sh" "th" "ch" and all of the letter sounds. Each letter was given three sentences, we went through and read each sentence. After that we went back through the earlier pages and repeated the lesson. By the end of the session the student was talking able magazines he wanted to bring in and sort through. I think the lesson plan was fun and easy to work with because the student understood the material fairly quickly. A bit of repetition was needed here and there, but the student was left with three basic rules to work on as well as reading and writing. Overall, it was very productive and exciting to work with a new American student.