Reading Tutor - Session 1

I began tutoring a struggling reader in 2nd grade today, and for documentation purposes, I'll call her Carla.

We met very briefly last week to learn each other's names, so today I began our 45 minute session by introducing myself and asking her about herself. She is a very sweet and somewhat shy little girl.

I asked her if she'd rather read to me first, or rather me read to her. She wanted me to read first. I chose a book below her reading level, and I read it to her, stopping to ask questions from time to time.

She then chose a book and began reading. She had great skills with consonants, but struggled with unfamiliar words only where the vowel sounds were concerned. She looks at the page for cues for unfamiliar words, but her decoding skills need work. I want to find a game that focuses on the vowels and vowel blends and work on that next week to see what that does for Carla.

We've already chosen the book we'll start with next week. The last activity in this session was a game with consonant blends. I wanted her to experience a great deal of success to build her confidence and put a very positive light on this whole tutoring thing. I'm looking forward to watching her progress in the coming weeks.