A couple weeks ago I started tutoring an incoming 6th grader. Let me tell you, tutoring in the summer is hard because you have to come up with everything on your own. Materials aren't that hard, but just deciding what to teach is tricky. I'm working on reading and math with him and I feel like it's pretty hit and miss. Last week when we were working on simple conversion from decimal to fraction to percent, I had a hard time connecting with him. Today I introduced area (because he was CLUELESS about it) and once he realized it's just multiplication, he got it really fast. We'll see if he remembers on Monday.
It's the same with the reading we were doing. He's behind, but I think his comprehension is pretty good, he just has trouble with figuring out what the words are. Then I realized it all comes down to phonics. Yep, as in hookd on fonics rilly workd for me. He he. Anyway, so today I pulled out a phonics book and we worked on hard and soft c and g (simply because that's the first lesson. I really have no skill at picking what to specifically target). I learned rules I never knew exsisted! I don't know that it will help him right away, but I think once he can successfully sound words out he'll be able to make connections with similar words he already knows. We'll see. But I think he had a good time thinking of words with the different sounds in them. In fact, as I'm typing this I'm still watching for C and G. I'd better work on getting something else running through my head. Mmmm. Like yummy dinner.
2 comments:
Yup, pretty much that's a result of the move away from using phonics to teach kids to read. Now none of them know how to read. Sad stuff. Good luck with tutoring!
Why on earth did they do that? What use is knowing hundreds of sight words when you come across a word you don't know? It's ridiculous.
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