Field Trip #2

For this assignment, I visited two reading tutoring sessions at my school.  Loretto employs a part-time tutor who works with 3^rd – 5^th grade students who struggle in reading and math.  These students were identified by our Principal and Assistant Principal as needing remediation based on their performance on past standardized tests and report card grades.  Teachers also identified students’ specific areas of need to be worked on.  The tutor, James Watts, is from England and has a degree in Elementary Education.  He works with students for 30 minutes on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and non-early-release Wednesdays.  The tutoring sessions take place in our school’s conference room, where a long table, chairs, white board, and SmartBoard are available.

During my visit, I observed Mr. Watts working with a group of five 5^th grade students on a reading lesson.  His lesson focused on comprehension and test-taking strategies, in preparation for the upcoming FCAT.  The students independently read a passage and completed several multiple-choice questions.  Then, Mr. Watts and the students re-read the passage together and went over each question, discussing answer choices and the strategies the students used.  The group completed several other passages of various genres in the same manner.

The second tutoring session that I observed was Mr. Watts working with a group of four 3^rd grade students on a fluency activity.  These students read significantly below grade level and were working with materials provided by a first grade teacher.  The group was shared reading a short story, focusing on word decoding and self-check strategies.  Afterwards, the students partner read another short story while Mr. Watts assisted individual students.  The session continued with additional work on fluency strategies and practice. 

All of the assessments that students complete while working with Mr. Watts are kept in a file that is given to the students’ teachers and kept for future use and documentation purposes (such as RtI meetings).

Mr. Watts uses materials provided by the school, such as reading lessons from the FCAT Blast Off! workbook, reading passages from FCAT TestMaker software, and various other reading practice workbooks to aid in comprehension lessons.  Other materials used include sight word flashcards, books of various genres, and individual white boards and markers for student use.  He also uses materials such as the SmartBoard for interactive games, PowerPoints, videos, etc.