Yesterday (Friday), I had the pleasure of eating lunch with a co-worker. We see a mutual student, who is struggling with our reading program, so we met to discuss how to personalize the otherwise generic lessons. She also knows the mother of a student in my study and Mom had e-mailed my co-worker with some questions, not only about what we're doing in writing, but also how the student is progressing in his/her reading therapies. And P.F. Changs helps everyone talk :)
We had a wonderful discussion over egg drop soups about our first student and came out with several plans of action to help. My co-worker printed the e-mail Mom sent and showed it to me. Nothing terrifying. Just wondering if there was a particular program I was following, if sending his/her homework assignments to me was OK, how long I planned on working with him, and what I felt his strengths and weaknesses were. I explained the activities we have done so far--Phrase or Sentence?, Create a Sentence, revising and editing, IVAN CAPP parts of speech, and Bare Bones sentences. We had just the previous day worked on expanding those sentences (which will be another post) and while the student understood the concepts, s/he struggled just a little to come up with longer sentences. The expanded ones were good, definitely longer and more descriptive, but they still lacked...something. I told my co-worker I think this may be one of his/her weaknesses. His/Her strength is being very verbal and articulate, but there is sometimes a disconnect between what can be spoken and what gets written. I fully expected this disconnect, as it's a common struggle for students with dyslexia. I think the next part of what I will be doing will help bring a concrete example to an otherwise ambiguous topic.
Speaking of what's next, to answer Mom's question if I was following a particular program, the question comes from reading tutoring. I've mentioned before we use Barton Reading and Spelling system for our reading sessions, so it's a planned out, "scripted" (I'm notorious for going off-script, just because I've taught the lessons enough to know the rule and its applications) program. I'm not doing anything like that. Instead of telling my co-worker what I'm kind of doing--making it up as I go along--I couched it nicely with "I'm cobbling together the best aspects of several things I've found." Which is true. In my research, I found a fairly natural progression suggestion in one book. I found a great way of helping students organize their ideas for longer writings in another. I found a concrete way of showing students how to expand their ideas in another. Absolutely, his school assignments can be worked in to this model, so please send them with him. My co-worker said she would ask Mom to ask the classroom teacher for extensions on writing assignments or even send them to me ahead of time, so I could gather any materials the student may need. It was then my co-worker filled me in on why Mom is so concerned--my student seems to have a case of the "no turn ins." Homework mysteriously doesn't get turned it. I was unclear on whether it was s/he wasn't telling Mom about the assignments period and not doing homework or if it was done, just not getting turned in...point of clarification needed.
I also told my co-worker my study runs through the end of October, but that I was prepared to continue through December. However, my real plan was to continue until someone told me to stop! Once I introduce the "new" writing process, our sessions will mostly be a matter of writing and refining and can be rinsed and repeated as often as necessary. Mom is a little concerned about getting Barton done as quickly as possible, so I suggested I could take a few minutes to work on Barton, but my co-worker said she would push for the full hour remain writing instruction.
Finally, over almond and cashew chicken (me) and something my co-worker described as "not Weight Watcher's approved, but I've already had my weigh-in for the week and I've lost so it's OK" (her), we wrapped up work talk and moved on to more interesting subjects like our husbands and why we love them, the difficulties of a literal interpretation of the Bible, and a meeting she had with our boss. Hard to believe all of that and we were only gone just over an hour! We arrived back at the office in time for her to get in the car line to pick up her daughter from school and for me to finish preparing for a student I see for Academic Coaching.
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