EDU 345 SFA Tutoring Final Exam

Fall 2017

Melody Doudna
 Introduction of Tutee

Rozell is an enjoyable little boy in the first grade. Although at first he may seem shy, he

loves taking a break from the regular homeroom to go with his special tutor and soon warms up

and is chatting away! He enjoys talking about superheroes, animals, and sports. He has shared

many exciting stories of him and his cousins playing sports over the weekends. We usually spent

the first minute or so of every session talking about his weekend or past day. Rozell loved to

share little facts about his friends and interests. He also loves candy and stickers, which I often

used as extrinsic rewards to help motivate him to stay on task during the twenty minute sessions.

His Letter Skills were initially very high, as he showed on the assessment. I saw that he

had mastered the alphabet previously, which was only reinforced through following practice.

Rozell’s Phonemic Awareness skills were high-flying, as he mastered the first PA

objective. Repetition and engaging activities sound like they helped him learn these, which is

worth noting for the study and acquiring of future skills.

Although he was initially mostly proficient in his Phonemic Awareness skills, did exhibit

some misunderstanding on proper blending technique. He repeatedly blended sounds together

which actually were their own single unit of sound. This could be in part due to his native dialect

from the Pittsburgh/Ohio area. Whatever the cause, he did not master the second or third

Phonemic Awareness objectives at first, but later made much progress on them.

The Letter Skills section was difficult for Rozell when it came to knowing the long vowel

sounds and matching the cues for a_e and i_e to the correct sounds. At first in the sessions he

was not at all familiar with these concepts, but by the close of the sessions I had seen much

progress.
 Rozell and I set many goals which we worked on during each tutoring cycle of five

lessons. These included improving blending technique, vowel recognition and pronunciation, and

automaticity with Letter Skills and sight words. It was admittedly difficult to initially assess

these skills with my student because of his many absences. I was able to administer the tutoring

assessment twice in order to continually tutor Rozell at the most effective Zone of Proximal

Development (ZPD). It was a joy to tutor Rozell, from beginning to end!

Pre-assessment and Formative Results

Pre-assessment and Formative Report #1

It has been incredibly beneficial for my growth as a teacher to participate in this SFA

Tutoring thus far. By being paired with an individual student, and going for tutoring bi-weekly

for 20-minute sessions each time, I have been able to see areas of both strength and weakness in

his reading abilities. Over the course of the first 5-day planning period, I already saw an

improvement in his confidence as well as his ability in his reading. By completing the Tutoring

Assessment both at the very beginning of our tutoring sessions as well as at the close of the first

5 tutoring sessions, I was able to clearly identify areas for improvement. This formative

assessment channels the students’ abilities into the areas of: Phonemic Awareness, Letter Skills,

Word Skills, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. In the first five lessons we focused

predominantly on laying the foundational Phonemic Awareness skills for my tutee. However,

because he advanced substantially over the course of those first five lessons, he mastered Lesson

Plan 1 and by the close of the first plan was now ready for the Tutoring Lesson Plan 2. In the

next five sessions under this new plan, we undertook to review Phonemic Awareness and go

deeper into Letter Skills, while now also addressing Word Reading, Spelling, and Sight Words.
At this point in tutoring my only concern or challenge was simply the fact that my designated

student had missed his tutoring three times on our scheduled days. Since I am only coming to his

school twice a week, this is significant, and delayed the consistency of his instruction. I reflected

the hope that he would be able to be more available in the coming weeks so we could continue

progressing in his reading skills.

Re-assessment and Formative Report #2

As the second part of this three-plan cycle began, I had very high hopes for my tutee. He

had successfully completed the Tutoring Plan 1, and was progressing well with the new

objectives for the Tutoring Plan 2. The constant repetition that I have been able to give my tutee

is important to his reading and formative growth. Considering the specified objectives, I consider

it extremely important for him to have regular and repetitive practices. Through the daily

assessments and the initial second assessment that the student completed, we are able to gauge

the students’ abilities in the areas of: Phonemic Awareness, Letter Skills, Word Skills, Fluency,

Vocabulary, and Comprehension. While the first five lessons focused predominantly on laying

the foundational Phonemic Awareness skills, he mastered Lesson Plan 1, and by this point was

now working on Tutoring Lesson Plan 2. In the sessions under this new plan, we were reviewing

Phonemic Awareness and going deeper into Letter Skills, while also addressing Word Reading,

Spelling, and Sight Words. Constant practice and engagement with the SFA materials are

necessary for a proper grasp intellectually and an ability to move ahead.

Unfortunately, my student has had extreme absenteeism throughout the sequence of this

entire tutoring year. This is my main concern. Prior to this Tutoring Plan, he had already missed

tutoring three times on our scheduled days. Under the current plan, he has missed two more days

of tutoring instruction. While I have had the opportunity during one of those days that my given
 student was absent to tutor another student, the last time I arrived for tutoring neither of the

students was there and I was unable to administer the tutoring. Since I am only coming to his

school twice a week, his absenteeism has been significant, and has delayed the consistency of his

instruction. We continue with Tutoring Plan 2 in the coming 5-day cycle. It is my ever-present

hope that he will be able to be more available in the coming weeks so we can continue

progressing in his reading skills and see some more impressive positive impact on his schooling.

Summative Assessment Results

At the close of these tutoring sessions, I will say that I have seen definite improvements

in my tutee’s progress towards meeting his objectives. Throughout the whole of the sessions, but

especially focusing on the last five lessons, the student showed improved mastery of objectives

enabling him to move from lesson plan one to two and deepen mastery of the objectives in two.

Going into the last five lessons, the student had made progress on the objectives of tutoring plan

two, but had not showed actual mastery of them. So in teaching these last five lessons, I focused

on teaching the following objectives through Evidence Based Practices (EBPs) included in SFA:

PA2: Blend sounds presented orally to say a word.

LS3: Identifies letter names.

WS1: Reads words using blending.

WS2: Spells a word by breaking it into separate sounds.

SW1: Recalls essential sight words.

As we worked on these objective throughout the course of these final five weeks, we used

different EBPs to help engage the tutee and develop a deeper comprehension of the material. He
enjoyed the change of activity, especially the fun activities I used the last two tutoring sessions

which included M&Ms to count phonemes and spell out words. These games were very popular.

I saw an overall increase in receptivity to instruction, retained interest, and an actual growth in

reading ability and achievement of the goals that Rozell and I had set throughout the weeks.

Final Recommendation for Tutee

I believe that any further tutoring opportunities would benefit Rozell. He has shown

strong improvement in our one-on-one interactive tutoring sessions, and any continued exposure

to this teaching style could be very beneficial. As I saw when I was tutoring him, his track record

for even coming to school was not very good, so advanced help through tutoring would ensure

that he does not fall behind. Based on my final summative assessment data, I would recommend

that the “next steps” with Rozell include further tutoring and even a conference with his parents

or guardians to see if they can help develop a plan to make sure that he becomes a more regular

school-goer. I believe that from what I have seen of my tutee’s growth in the past months, his

challenges are simply developmental, and I would not make the recommendation for testing. I

think my tutee will reach grade level with the one-to-one assistance that further tutoring will

provide.

Two Significant Ideas That You Learned In This Experience

As a young teacher, I am very appreciative of this opportunity to grow as a professional

educator. Tutoring experience is very valuable, I believe, firstly because it allows me to see into

the direct experience of a child with the reading material. Having the one-on-one time with a

student has also allowed me to try new strategies and methods that might be more difficult to

initiate in a classroom with 20 peers because of time, materials, and space. Secondly, being able
to follow such a streamlined format as SFA has also been very inspiring as I develop my own

professional teaching philosophy and find the most effective ways to impact student learning. I

have found that this experience has helped round my style of teaching, enabling me to grow in

my understanding of what it means to teach students through effective use of proven strategies

and intervention methods that teach to all learning styles.