Hey Group!
I have decided to write about my tutoring experience and an issue that I have faced. Maybe there is some advice out there and some techniques that you could send along to me.
My tutee is a third grade student who will be entering into 4th grade this coming year. My issue with him, among many, is that he has issues in word study with vowels. I started working on long vowels with him, but he seemed to understand them well enough, that I decided to move on to something else. One of the issues that I am noticing with him is that he has trouble sounding out words, to figure out what they are, and he has trouble spelling them as well. I see these two things being related to one another. During the last session we were working on "ow" sound, say owww. But of course the english language is not perfect and so there are some exceptions to that rule, such as "tow" or "bow". So even though I explain it, he still really does not understand the reasoning behind it. Also, he never learned to count his vowels, so that the first one says its alphabet name and the second one is silent. Those kinds of things.
So my question is, how does a teacher or anyone for that matter, approach this kind of issue. Is this the situation where you start instilling these rules into the student?
Another thing is that, when we were writing today. My tutee was writing the word "looked" and he thought that it was "lookT" because of the way it sounds. It seems that he does this with many of his words. I do know that he is in the within word pattern stage, where they use and confuse vowels. But I'm not sure how you move a student like this further into the next level. I have used word builder cards as well as word sorts, but I feel kind of like I am out of ideas.
Thanks Group!! =)
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3 comments:
Hi Michelle,
Hopefully this will be of some assistance to you. Possibly what you can do is try working more on homophones with your tutee. By working on homophones with him, you will be introducing him to the meaning, the pattern, as well as the sound that should be considered when spelling particular words. For example, the more that you introduce these components to him, the more he will begin to comprehend the differences in the sound and the spelling of a word. To become sure that this comprehension occurs, maybe try making up flash cards that demonstrate words such as "tow" and "toe." Overall, I feel that the introduction to homophones and the flash cards will get your tutee ready for the spelling-meaning connection that will be explored after the within word pattern spelling stage. These things will get him particularly prepared for the syllables and affixes spelling stage and the derivational relations spelling stage.
Hey Michelle,
You are in a tough situation with your tutee. It seems that he is having quite a lot of difficulty with the English language... which is understandable based on its complexity. It sounds that you are on the right path with the strategies you are implementing with him. Honestly, I don't know what would work better for him. It is hard to teach rules of phonics at this age because there are so many words that are exceptions to the phonic rules. My only suggestion would be for him to read, read, and read more. The more he reads the more exposure he will have to the English language. These reading opportunities will help him to become more familiar with words, their meanings, and their sounds. Good luck! I wish I could have been more help. - Liana
Wow Michelle, tough problem! My first thought was how did this kid make it so far in his education already? It sounds like you are on the right course trying different strategies! is the teacher trying similar ones of have they given up? sometimes when the student knows that the teacher is mentally done then they dont care to try either.
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