Taylar TS #11

Date/Time: April 28, 2017; 4-5PM
Location: 1911 Jackson Bluff Rd.
For our last session, I wanted to be more interactive and make sure Christian had fun! His spelling is still his most difficult area, but compared to his first week, his grasp of the alphabet is so much better! For this lesson, I bought various toys and candy from the dollar store, like cars, batman figurines, farm animals, and dinosaurs, and put them into a bag.  I had Christian reach into the bag and, without looking, pull out one of the items.  I asked him to tell me what it is and how to spell it.  I was amazed at how much his spelling has improved because he was able to spell the majority of the items without much help from me.  I still had to prompt him, but compared to the first week when I had to suggest what letter should come next, he was able to tell me which letter it was when all I had to do was ask what comes next. I was very pleased with his improvement and was so happy to see that our sessions had been working.  To take it a step further, I pulled out the One Fish, Two Fish book that we had read together from a couple weeks prior and read it with him again.  Instead of just identifying the fish and their colors, I went through the reading, word for word with him and had him repeat after me with each line.  He was able to follow along much better than the previous weeks and his pronunciation was also improved.  Overall, I think Christian's skills have improved greatly in our time together.  He still struggles with phonics and spelling, but his breadth of vocabulary and ability to identify words based on pictures or dictations is much more skilled than most students in his situation. All in all, my only regret is that I won't be able to continue having sessions with him to see him improve even further.