Kennell_TP_#1

TP #1 (1/14/2015)

On Wednesday, I met with my child tutee for the first time. Young-Seo is a five year old Korean girl who has only been in the U.S. for four months, but her English is already very impressive. She speaks on about the same level that you would expect from a five year old who is native to the U.S.

We started with a bit of reading, and she did quite well. However, there is work to be done with her vocabulary. I plan on starting a vocabulary list for her to add new words to during reading, to be studied later.

She was very easy to talk to, and though she was a little distractible, was also very enthusiastic about learning to read and write. She was very quick to pick up on new words and new spellings. I still have to figure out a structure that will help Young-Seo make measurable progress with her writing, but it is clear that she is going to improve rapidly, with or without my help.

I found that writing practice was much easier when it was geared toward things she knew and cared about. Surprisingly, she had yet to learn how to spell “Korea” in English. After learning that, we were able to write sentences like “I like Korea” and “Korea is next to China.” I think that, before too long, Young-Seo will be able to write a basic five-sentence paragraph on a single subject. Though this is quite advanced for someone her age, I feel like she would have fun trying to do it. This could be an eventual goal for the eight weeks we will be working together.