Tutoring young children

I spent my first day tutoring kids from 2nd through 5th grade. There are several of us tutor/teachers at the office on Saturdays. The office has after school tutoring times as well; I'm only working there on Saturdays.



It's interesting to see each kid's strengths and weaknesses in Math and English. I think I noticed most kids are good in one but not the other.

Some fun memories are from a fifth grade boy. He is hyperactive and inattentive at times, though I'm not diagnosing him as ADHD, as I'm not qualified to do that. He is strong in math and can barely keep his eyes on text when he is reading English.

He looked at the tie I was wearing and asked, "Are you the president?" I asked if it was because of the tie, and he said yes. I told him I don't want to be president, and the discussion went back to the lesson.

The director helped me on my first day, observing and leading the lesson at times. She asked him what he knew of punctuation. He said he didn't know any punctuation. She showed him the period, question mark and exclamation mark. She pointed to the exclamation mark and asked, "What's this?" He said, "A loud voice."

When the session was nearly over, his mind was particularly fried. I told him he was fried, and he didn't know that expression. Then he said, "I'm a zombie" to show he knew he was exhausted. I said, "You don't want to read?" Student's response: "I want to build something." I asked, "With Lego?" He looked at me hard. How did I know? He had a t-shirt with pictures of Lego blocks and the words "Endless Imagination." I think I should try to appeal to his tendency to think like an engineer. I hope I can show him that learning reading well will pay off in many ways, including possibly becoming an engineer which is a good life. He asked me how they built rockets. Maybe I can bring in a few Lego pieces.


Comments

  1. cap77September 19, 2021 at 7:15 PM

    I love this! Playing to his interests will certainly help him on so many ways :) he is lucky to have you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. MarkSeptember 19, 2021 at 11:45 PM

    As long as we’re diagnosing things we’re not qualified to diagnose, have you considered dyslexia? That could fit being verbal, being good at math and at physical manipulation, but having trouble decoding written words.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom ReingoldSeptember 20, 2021 at 12:04 AM

      That’s a good thought. Thanks. I tutored two dyslexic twins earlier this year.

      Delete
  3. J. M.September 20, 2021 at 1:02 AM

    You are so good at this!

    ReplyDelete
  4. pstollerSeptember 21, 2021 at 5:52 PM

    Perhaps basic language can be treated as something akin to math: idea A plus idea B equals conclusion C; certain words and punctuation marks act as operators or other mathematical symbols; questions invite you to solve for x; and so on. Elementary logic might actually help someone like your student see a connection that helps them engage, which could later lead to a better understanding of where and how language and math diverge.

    Anyway, kudos to you!

    ReplyDelete

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