Reflective Journal Entry 3

Amanda Lilly

Ms. Albanese

MAS 7998

December 4, 2012

Journal Entry #3

(Tutoring)

Observation	Reflection	Questions Raised/ Answers Attempted
At first I attempted to observe if Josh had a hard time making sounds, which is why he wasn’t able to pronounce or sound out some of the sight words on the BRI word lists. Josh was given choices on the order of worksheets he was asked to complete by choosing what worksheet he wanted to start with. He chose to start with the worksheet that asked him to look at a picture and write underneath of the picture the beginning sounds of that word. He did not have a difficult time completing sh, ch, and th sounds/words. Then he completed a worksheet where he had to write down the beginning letter of the word shown in the picture and make that sound. He did not have a difficult time with his p, c, or h beginning sounds. Next he completed a worksheet where he had to circle the pictures that made sh, ch, and th. The only pictures that he forgot to circle were pictures of words that he did not know, such as chariot and chest. I think that he did a good job with beginning sounds, but may need more assistance with vowel sounds in the middle of words. He also has an excellent understanding of words and their meaning because I would ask him questions about the picture he observed and he would tell me what those pictures were of for the most part.	Josh started to lose interest towards to end of the lesson. I asked him if he learned anything new during this lesson and he said he found out what a chariot and chest are, but other than that he knew all of the words and could even tell me some of the words in Spanish. I think this lesson was too easy for Josh and that he has a more difficult time with vowel sounds than consonant sounds. I also think he needs to work more on putting parts of a word together to blend two separate sounds to make a word. He was very polite and cooperative during this tutoring lesson, but I could tell that he has a hard time sitting for periods longer than 30 minutes.	Q: How can I improve my lessons?   A: This first lesson was a starting point to see what direction I needed to go from here. I think Josh would benefit more from comprehending vowel sounds and working on his reading fluency.   Q: How can I motivate focus and keep him focused?   A: I found a good motivator for Josh is sand dollars. My mentor teacher gave me these if he worked really hard during our tutoring sessions. He can use these sand dollars once they add up to enough to collect a big prize offered at school.