TV Le TS#5

This Tuesday I met with Astin again in the public library. This time I came prepared with some shark related handouts because at our last meeting he expressed so much interest in them.

To be honest, I was very nervous about this second meeting because I don't have much experience teaching/tutoring children, especially at such a low level. Interestingly enough, he is so intelligent, Upon out first meeting he taught me that baby sharks are called pups, which I honestly did not remember! (I will now!)

I focused on his handwriting this meeting because I noticed last session he wrote some letters backwards. He really didn't want to write too much even though the whole lesson was about sharks. I offered some sheets for him to trace words such as, "I love sharks!" He wrote for a little, but proceeded to tell me he wants to get books.

As a compromise I would allow us to look through one book then go back to the lesson and so forth. This worked well with him because he was pretty diligent, he just REALLY wanted to read animal book also. When I asked him to write the word "shark," he would write it once and begin to yawn and pretend as if he was really tired so that we would stop. Then I asked him to focus and write very slowly because if he wrote it well enough we could stop. This got his attention and he tried his best, but when he got to the "K" it was as if he completely forgot how to write it.

He said, "how do you do K?" I was ecstatic when he asked this because he was actually asking me to teach him something he wanted to know!!! So I drew my large lines with the dotted line in the middle  and told him to write a long line, then form the middle his angled down line, then the line up. I think we both felt very accomplished when we wrote a perfect "K."