Anna Kingsbury

Tutoring Experience Summary and Reflection

1. Introduction
The student that I had the pleasure of working with during our tutoring
experience was named Jonathan. He was very skilled when it came to adding
single digit numbers and seemed to have them memorized for the most part.
He was also very strong at putting together sums of numbers that made 10
(such as 5+5 or 3+7) and seemed to be very comfortable with the
conceptual understandings behind both addition and subtraction in general.
Jonathan also showed that he had a fairly good grasp on the concept of place
values, which was exemplified by his ease in use of the base ten blocks. He
also showed interest in multiplication problems, but did not seem to have
much experience in working with them. Jonathan seemed to have a little bit
of trouble when it came to adding multi-digit numbers as he often got mixed
up when trying to write them down and add them using algorithms on pencil
and paper.
Overall, my goals when working with Jonathan were mostly focused on
getting him more comfortable with algorithms used when adding multi-digit
numbers, adding sums that made 20 (since he was so talented at sums that
make 10), working with conceptual understanding of multiplication, as well as
a little work with making sure he understood place value differences between
1s and 10s.
In order to give Jonathan some practice with adding multi-digit numbers, we
played a game called 99 or bust. This is a card game in which the first
player would draw two cards from the deck to start and adding them
together. On their next turn, they would draw another card and add this to
their running total. This would continue until one of the players reached the
pre-set goal (typically 99, hence the title of the game), which Jonathan liked
to change to a higher or lower number depending on if he was winning or not.
My intention in playing this game was to create lots of multi-digit addition
problems for Jonathan to add up at each turn in order to make him more
comfortable with the processes and algorithms it took to do so. To help
Jonathan memorize sums that make 20 (which I thought would also help with
multi-digit numbers), we played a game that I created which Jonathan helped
me to modify entitled Find the Pair. In this game, the player would roll a die,
and then would have to construct a set of 20 using unifix cubes using the
number they rolled essentially he would have to find the pair to go with the
number rolled to add up to 20. The player would then receive as many points
as the pair that they found, and it was Jonathans idea to keep track of
points using some bingo chips I had in my math manipulative kit. My
intention for this game was to get Jonathan to realize the similarities between
sums that make 20 and those that make 10 for example to make 10 you
would need 6+4, and to make 20 you could use 16+4. To work on conceptual
understanding with multiplication, we did two different activities. The first

was one titled Fill the Sleds which involved coloring in different areas on
grid paper. The player would roll two dice, and the number on one die would
serve as the number of squares in a column, and the other die would give the
number of squares in a row. The player would then color in the box that it
made and would need to determine the number of squares in their box (dice
1 X dice 2 = amount in the box). The other activity we did involved paper
bowls and unifix cubes, and Jonathan had to roll two dice again. One die
represented the number of bowls, and the other represented the number of
cubes in each bowl. I thought these two activities would give Jonathan good
experience with directly modeling multiplication problems so that he could
see how numbers were being grouped together as they were being
multiplied. When working with place values, we played a game called Race
to 100 in which we used the base 10 blocks. In this game, we would use the
flat square base 10 block that represents 100 as our game board, and would
roll some dice to get the amount to place on the game board. Players would
take turns, and the first person to get to 100 (fills up the game board) would
be the winner! I thought this would be a good game to play to test where
Jonathan was in this area because I could see if he could recognize how many
single 1s pieces he needed before he could substitute it out for a 10s piece,
and I would be able to see if he could easily transition between counting by
10s to counting by 1s. Jonathan really excelled in this game, so I quickly
decided that he did not need any more work on place values.
I believed that it would be appropriate to focus on adding multi-digit numbers
specifically because most of math builds on the idea of addition and we
sometimes must add very large numbers while we are working on
multiplication problems and so on. I wanted to help Jonathan with the
conceptual understanding of multiplication as well because it is most likely
what the students will be moving into next in their classroom, if they havent
already. Also, it is key to understand multiplication before moving onto
concepts like division. I intended to reinforce ideas behind place values
because understanding place value is crucial when adding or subtracting
larger numbers, as Jonathan needs to know what place values to line up and
why.
2. Growth in the Childs Mathematical Proficiency
Jonathan, as mentioned earlier, seemed to be very confidant already in his
work that involved place values, and I therefore ceased working with that
area and moved onto others. In regards to his work with multi-digit numbers
in the 99 or bust game, Jonathan grew in that by the end of our sessions he
could more easily line up the two numbers that he was adding on paper and
therefore made less mistakes when adding them together. Jonathan also
demonstrated his knowledge in what it meant to carry a number to the
next place value over when adding them - which he did not seem to fully
grasp at the beginning of our sessions. He demonstrated this as he was
working on adding numbers such as 34+18 and would say statements such
as 4+8 is 12 so I would write the 2 and then carry the 10. This showed me

that Jonathan understood that when he carried the 1 he was actually

carrying a 10 since it was being put in the next place value over. As we
worked with sums that made 20, Jonathan began to understand how this was
very similar to finding sums to make 10 while working with the unifix cubes in
Find the Pair. By the end of the game, Jonathan began finding the pair to
the number on the die that would make 10, and then adding another 10 to
make 20, which told me that he understood that this concept was like finding
a sum to make 10, but with another 10 added onto one of the pairs to make
it 20. He also began memorizing these sums as the game progressed and
some of them repeated, and by the end of the second time we played he
almost never had to actually construct the number with the unifix cubes.
When it came to working with directly modeling multiplication problems
through both the Fill the Sleds game and the paper bowl activity, Jonathan
showed progress in that by the end of that second activity he no longer
needed to directly model each equation with the bowls and cubes, but could
simply lay out the bowls and then count by groups (2s, 4s, 5s, etc) to find
the answer. This showed me that he was truly understanding that
multiplication is a grouping of numbers.
3. Recommendations for Future Mathematical Study
For Jonathan, I believe it would be very appropriate to work on the algorithms
behind subtraction of multi-digit numbers as well as conceptual
understanding of division. Since Jonathan seemed to have a little trouble
focusing on the actual pencil and paper processes behind addition of larger
numbers, I believe it would be important to make sure that he has a firm
grasp on these similar types of algorithms behind subtraction, as subtraction
of very large numbers will be encountered later in his mathematical career.
Also, as soon as Jonathan has a very firm grasp on exactly what is occurring
in a multiplication problem, I believe the next step would be to begin working
with him on division problems and how it is essentially the opposite of
multiplication. Understanding of division will become crucial later when
Jonathan encounters problems like those having to do with fractions.
4. Reflecting on Instructional Actions
During these tutoring sessions, I made the decisions to play a lot of math
games with Jonathan rather than simply doing math related problems or
activities. The fact that we were playing games as we were learning math
concepts seemed to keep Jonathan much more focused and enthused than he
was when I tried to just ask him to solve math problems. I think that choosing
to play games specifically helped motivate Jonathan to learn and practice the
mathematical concepts that we were working with. However, I believe that it
would have been a better idea to challenge Jonathan a little more in terms of
the concepts we were working with so that he would be able to grow more
mathematically, and if I were to do this tutoring experience over again, I
would try harder to teach Jonathan concepts that he may be ready to work

on, rather than only focusing on giving him practice with things he has
already encountered.
5. Reflecting on My Professional Growth
I feel that I have grown professionally both in my time management skills and
in my ability to judge what exactly a child can comprehend when it comes to
a particular topic. At the beginning of this tutoring experience, I often
planned too much for Jonathan and I to work on in one session and we did not
cover all the activities that I had planned. By the end of the sessions,
however, I was able to more accurately judge how long it would take us to
complete each game or activity and I could better adjust that activity as we
were doing it in order to ensure that we hit all the crucial concepts of the
lesson that I had planned. I also believe that I became more skilled in
understanding what exactly it was that Jonathan knew about each concept as
I was working with him, and this helped me to develop a lesson that better
catered around his needs. For example, I felt that in the first few activities I
sometimes accidently skipped over understandings in a concept and didnt
realize until later that I should have spent more time going over a certain
idea. By the end of tutoring Jonathan, I more quickly spotted when he needed
more assistance on a specific part of a concept or game and could therefore
help him much more than I had before.