I had the same three students today that I’ve had the past few weeks, just in a different order. They still think I’m picking them – and I still keep insisting that I’m just following the list that I was given. I don’t want other students to think I’m ignoring them. They just don’t need me. Every now and then I’d like to work with a higher-level student to get some perspective. There just isn’t time, though.

S was cheery as always. He just needs a lot of practice. Nothing unique happened with him today. I’m just grateful that he understands me and talks to me in English (mostly). This is not always the case. Sometimes it is half the year before a non-English-speaking student will even start to get that we all aren’t speaking gibberish to him.

J wanted me to show him the letters to use to spell out the word we were working on. I’ll do a lot to help them out but that isn’t helping. That is doing all the work for him. I’d already said the word out loud and sounded it out. Nothing. I then asked him about the first letter of the word, sounding just it out. Still nothing. I then told him what the letter was, hoping he could find it on the board. Nope. Nada. Zilch. We then went through the whole alphabet, letter by letter, and he couldn’t find it.

I changed to another activity. It is best to try something different than stick with the same thing and get a student frustrated. Part of this is practice, and part is building up their confidence. I don’t ever want to frustrate them so that they don’t want to learn. It is important to me that they associate school with fun. But there is also work involved. I can’t do it all for them.

We changed to sight words and he did passably. He got really frustrated that he didn’t recognize some of them, which makes sense since he still does not recognize his letters. I pointed out that this isn’t a test, we are just practicing.

I switched to something else. I had some simple books to read and let him pick one. One of the books had a picture of two people playing checkers. I asked him if he had played that game and he said he had but he lost. I mentioned that it is all about being a good winner and a good loser.

He recoiled at that. “Good loser?!” (Insert interrobang here) I might have just as well said it was ok to walk on your hands all the time. It is amazing how competitive five year olds can be. I’ll tell a story about this from last year another time. Teaching kids how to play games fairly and be good sports is also part of my tutoring. This is just as valuable a skill as knowing your letters.

Then I went and got V. Quickly in, she asked who I needed next. Usually do need someone after her, but today she was last. I said “I need you” and gave her a smile. Her face completely lit up.

Isn’t this all we ever want to hear, that we are important, that we are special?

She talked a lot about her Dad and her Mom’s boyfriend, but not about her Mom. After the story from the teacher from last week that makes sense. Talking about Mom would be painful. I heard today from the teacher that Mom will be in the hospital for two months. This has to be a chronic problem.