Tutor Page

Hello Wonderful Tutors! This page is for YOU!

Thank you for volunteering your time to help children. You WILL make a difference!

* Sometimes I will refer to your student as a male and sometimes a female. It got cumbersome saying s/he and him/her.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to improve your little student’s reading comprehension through building a STRONG vocabulary!
Why? The size of one’s vocabulary is a strong (if not the strongest) predictor of academic success. You can help a child build a storehouse of words she can use in reading, writing, and learning all new things. Your efforts will result in better reading, more detailed writing, better grades and better SELF-ESTEEM. The Teaching Guide will make it easy and fun!!! Also, check out the FREE activities that you can print (see red button below).

How? Teaching him parts of common objects in his everyday life. These are FOUNDATIONAL words that many children learned at home, but your little student probably didn’t. You’ll guide him through creating a personal “Book of Knowledge” filled with the vocabulary you are teaching. I had amazing results doing this with a range of ages. In one school, it was instrumental in improving the school’s grade from a D to an A in one year. “Book of Knowledge” lessons became part of the reading curriculum in Collier County. It’s really effective and fun, too.

Another wonderful thing you’ll be doing is giving a weak student a chance to think and to talk. Many times, the weaker students don’t want to speak up in class. They are afraid they’ll be wrong and embarrassed. They don’t raise their hand and try to answer questions. Teachers are taught to have equity in their questioning, being sure to ask each child questions, but many times the teacher can’t give the student adequate time to think and explain. It’s sad, but true. One-on-one tutoring is a wonderful opportunity for a child. The questions I included in the Teaching Guide for each lesson are designed to get the student really thinking about the object (“How is a pitcher different from a vase?”; “Why do you think these are called hand grips?”). It’s your job to give him time and encouragement to answer. Try not to help too quickly. That’s hard sometimes. When he answers, and you affirm the answer, you will also be building his self-esteem… much needed!!! What an amazing gift you are giving a child. (There is a Teacher training video below that you can watch.)

BEFORE YOU GO

1. Read the “Letter to the Tutor” in the Teaching Guide. It’s important. If you don’t have a Teaching Guide click here.

2. Watch this a training video about using the Teaching Guide.

3. Prepare the Book of Knowledge. You will be helping your little student build a personal “Book of Knowledge” also. Your student will trace common objects and will label them using their dictionary. This will activate the learning. You might consider making one of your own, so you’re doing the activities at the same time. It will be more fun for both of you. If so, just double everything.

- Get a clasp folder for the child. You might give him or her a choice of colors. This will become his
“Book of Knowledge” where he will house his entries to keep them from getting lost.

                - Print the blank “Table of Contents” (T of C) click here.  He will number the new page and fill in the
                    Table of Contents each time he starts studying a new object.  This makes it easy to find the entry
                     when you review or want to add more labels.

- Create the cover - simply write the child’s name with an apostrophe “s” and Book of Knowledge.

Ex: Fred’s Book of Knowledge. This makes it truly HIS Book of Knowledge!

4. Choose and Print the first object that you want to study from the Teaching Guide (pages 34 - 95). Choose an object that you think the child will find interesting. Maybe dog, bike, body or face. (Later, after studying two objects that you chose, you can ask the child if she wants to choose an object to study. She can look through her Illustrated Dictionary to decide. If she doesn’t have one, she can look through the pictures in the Teaching Guide.

5. Three-hole punch the T of C and the first picture. (If you don’t have a punch, the teacher should have one for you to use. You might want to print a few pictures and three-hole punch them and keep them for later.)

6. Put the T of C and the first object in the folder with the T of C showing first. Have the clasps open from the back to add more pages to his book.

7. LAST - if possible, take a replica of the item - like a toy dog, a toy bike, a boiled egg, etc.. This is called realia and it helps when you can show a 3-D object when teaching the parts. You should have this in a bag until you are ready for it or that will have all the attention!

TRAINING VIDEO

NOW YOU’RE READY TO GO!

HERE’S HOW TO DO A LESSON

SESSION ONE FOR EACH OBJECT:

TEACHING THE OBJECT AND ITS PARTS. (After the first object, review the parts of the previous object before teaching a new object.)

Step 1: Give your student the picture you printed and three-hole punched. Have him put #1 (for the first picture, #2 for the 2nd picture, etc.) on it where it will show on the right top corner when put into the folder.

Step 2: Show and talk about each part of the object using the child’s Illustrated Dictionary. Then, if you were able to bring realia of the object, you can show that now pointing out each part labeled in the Illustrated Dictionary. If it’s a body part, you can show yours or the students. Ex: palm of the hand, etc. Go over the parts several times and have the child repeat the name for the part.

Step 3: Label the picture in his Book of Knowledge folder. Help him correctly label each part using his own Illustrated Dictionary as a guide. I used to tell my students, “I’m going to show you how to label like they do in COLLEGE!” This excited them, and they tried their best. VERY IMPORTANT, show him how the label line has to be flat (horizontal), so he can write on it, and the labeling line has to touch the part being labeled. The first time I had my 2nd grade class label, I didn’t think to tell them this, and you wouldn’t believe the way they did it!!! It was terrible. Watch carefully how they do it. This will sometimes become little teaching moments… when you have to show them just where to put the line for hoof on a horse, etc.

Step 4: Add the name of the first entry to the Table of Contents. Be sure you added the page number to the picture.

SESSION TWO FOR EACH OBJECT: REVIEWING & THINKING DEEPLY & TALKING

Step 1: The next session - Review each part of the object studied in the previous session. Use the realia if you have it, if not, you can use the picture from the Illustrated Dictionary or his Book of Knowledge entry. Let him tell you the parts.

Step 2: Follow the lesson from the Teaching Guide for that object. (Pages 5 - 21). Since you have already taught the parts and reviewed them, these questions will allow for good discussions, and you will be helping your student in many other ways (see list below). Remember to give your student a chance to think and to talk. This is a very important goal of your tutoring. Be excited when he comes up with a good answer. This will build his confidence.

Step 3: You don’t need to read the suggested book or any book, but if you have a book with the featured object, that would be nice. If you find a book, point out the parts you labeled. This is important because he sees the object in a setting in a context. Have the child participate in telling the names.

AFTER TEACHING THREE OBJECTS:

After teaching three objects, use a whole session for review. See pages 22 - 29 in Teaching Guide and check out the Free Activities link below. Review activities such as analogies and Venn diagrams are for reviewing two objects. Some activities are for reviewing three or more objects. Some activities in the Teaching Guide and pages 66-67 in the dictionary are to help the student use all of the Illustrated Dictionary.