I was very pleased to find that Christian’s grasp of the
English alphabet continues to improve. In transcribing the alphabet, asked for
a lot less help, only looking to me when he couldn’t remember maybe five or ten
letters. As I’ve mentioned in my other posts, Christian tends to write some
(maybe five or six) of his letters backwards. For example, I have seen him
write N’s, Q’s, and Z’s backwards, although in this third session, he only
wrote his N backwards, and as soon as I pointed out the N he crossed out the
backwards one and drew a proper one.
This session, I tried to teach Christian the sound each
letter makes. To do this, I ran through each letter, writing it down, and then
saying and writing a word that that letter begins with. He was able to provide
me with a word for half the alphabet’s letters. The other half, though, he
seemed either confused or not paying attention. Either way, I need to create or
find a more concise and entertaining activity so that he will learn faster, as
well as not associate this knowledge with the discouragement of learning it.
For the latter activity, Christian’s mother was watching
over her son and I as we worked together. She distracted him a few times,
interjecting in Swahili. If I find this to be a problem, I will make sure to
shut it down.
I checked out some children’s story books (Curious George, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,
etc.) from the Tallahassee Library for our next tutoring session. The idea is
that the stories as well as the books’ pictures will help keep Christian’s
attention as well as provide a context for the letters and words I’m trying to
teach him.
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