Rochester, MN - A New Town

Okay- Here I am in a new town. I'm looking for a way to plug myself in to this community. I have made inquiries- but haven't found a way I can tutor yet! I'll keep you posted.

Stormy Weather and Homework

Although the weather outside was thunder and lightning, we heated up a little bit in our sessions today. I was instructed by my mentor (EP), not to give homework. I have been doing so with one student, with negative results, for three weeks. EP explained that we get our students, in the first place, because parents are at 'wits end' with their children and reading- and they come to us exasperated. It made a lot of sense. No more homework.

Parents Priorities continued...

I need to point out- My kid's parents are great- they would do anything for their kids... Learning to read is one of the most important things a child can learn... We need to make sure this is very clear to our kids. One of the ways we can make this clear is by demonstrating through our time allocation, time to read.

Parents Priorities

I found it interesting that not a single one of my students had done any reading, or practicing over the six week break. I try to remind them that as much as they need to practice baseball or football, they need to practice reading as well... And Moms and Dads- as much time as you spend shuffling your kids around- You could be applying this same principle. How you spend your time is an obvious indication of your priorities and values-

Summer Vacation

I gave the kids six weeks off for summer. We started up again yesterday. I have been to baseball games, and have seen them- but no tutoring until yesterday. Tomorrow we will be discussing goals...

Relationship and Confidence and a 9 year old

My mentor in everything that is tutoring, and very kind friend- (whom I shall refer to as "EP" now- as well as in future blogs), mentioned the other day that "Success with your students is 80% about relationship". Well, I have a nine year old coming in today. I pray so very hard for this boy. We have drilled the short vowel sounds with several different techniques for a long time now. He is just barely making progress. His confidence level- from years of inadequacy in school is nill. He just seems afraid to make a choice of a vowel sound- he has failed so for so long...

He likes photography, so last week We spent one afternoon out on the shore of Lake Superior taking pictures of neat ice formations. We didn't do any tutoring- we just hung out. I hope he can get to a comfort level with me that he will just "blurt out" the sound he thinks is correct- rather than always going through the painful self doubt he has...

Albert Einstein was Dyslexic...

I spent an extended session with an 8 year old student of mine today. He spent several minutes explaining, with remarkable detail, about a black lab named "Shadow", the family dog. How the dog was running through a field... a farmer took two shots with a rifle... the other dog was killed- but not the dog they named "Shadow". It was a very sweet story, with smiles and other gestures. After all of our drills with the blending board etc., near the end of the session, a couple of hours later, I asked him to write, as best he could, the story he had told me earlier. The result was one sentence of 13 words, 9 were misspelled.

This is one of the challenges we face- with these little people we call our children, these little symbols we call letters... explaining in detail, what we see in our minds.

Einstein was a dyslexic man who was able to bridge this gap- this chasm with the language of letters, numbers, and mathematics...

(See Einstein Link Below)