Next Seven Week Block

One week left with your students! How does it feel to be almost finished? Do you think you had enough time to make a difference? Remeber we have to balance the tutoring intervention with their class time in other subjects. They are missing time in another area so we can't continue tutoring them all. What would you like as an ideal tutoring session for the next time? Would it include tutoring the same student? An older or a younger student? What do think about tutoring more than one student next time? Some teachers feel a shorter 20 min session is better so the students miss less classtime. The next session may be quite different in terms of days we tutor and what part of the class we use to tutor. i.e. Our Mondays and Fridays may not be just for prep etc. What do you think?

Be Honest!!

O.k., we need to evaluate ourselves to make sure we are succeeding in our goals. We have a responsibility to make sure the time our students spend with us is valuable and productive. Some things that can cause roadblocks are not our fault but we still need to figure out a way around them. Please post your honest opinion about how things are going, i.e. do you think you are really making a difference in their reading. If you need to talk privately with me about a concern please do not hesitate.

Two weeks down - Four to go!!!

How is it going?? Do you think you will have enough time to get all that you wanted done? Do you think you will be able to see an improvement in your student's reading level in that time? Are you having any difficulties? Feel free to post some concerns and/or give others some advice.

Activities for First Tutoring Day!

What should we do for the first meeting of tutors and students? Should we all be together? Should students and tutors do something on their own, or should should it be a group activity? Post your thoughts...

High School Reading Not Challenging Enough?

Although this course is designed to help readers who are below grade level, I thought this article would be interesting to discuss. I want to know how you feel about the results of the study that shows reading materials and teacher expectations at high school are lower than they should be.

"It's clear that our high schools should be incorporating more complex reading materials into courses across the curriculum,"

"The impact of low expectations is devastating to students,"

"We have a moral imperative to give all students the opportunity to develop critical reading skills in high school."

These are the statements that stood out the most to me. Please share your thoughts. What has been your experience? Are you worried you haven't been challenged enough in the last two years of your education? I realize this article is meant for teachers but, I think you can handle it!

Learning Styles

Lots of paper in this lesson!! Save the copies you don't use!! Post your comments about the Learning Styles inventories on the blog. Just try it!!! It won't hurt, I promise. If you don't get on the blog by Friday's class you can do so in the BBT lab.

So... what is your style? Did you already know what style you were? What inventory did you like the best? Did you come up with the same results on different inventories? Which one would give you the most useful information about your student? Think about how will you introduce this to your students and how you would administer it.

How would you implement the Learning Style of your student into your lessons?

See you Thursday!

Regarding Phonics...

Regarding Friday's lesson...I hope the lesson on phonics wasn't too discouraging for everyone. Obviously we have to teach, and learn, letter sounds and letter combination sounds. I wanted you to get a sense of why some students may have trouble learning to read. We can't just rely on phonics. Be careful not to repeatedly ask your students to "sound it out". They may need to rely on other strategies. We will be going over more strategies next week. Have a great week end!

Welcome to Reading Tutor!!

We will have to figure out together how this blog space will be helpful for all us. I will post questions pertaining to the course for us to discuss. I will also post some of my observations of how you are doing with your students. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations.