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FIELD EXPERIENCE: TUTORING REPORT

INTEREST AND ATTITUDE SURVEY

My first day of tutoring, September 13, 2017, I administered an interest and attitude survey to my

tutee as the way to figure out the things she liked and disliked. In school, all most all my best teachers on

the first day of class did some kind of interest survey to figure out the things each student found interesting.

All my favorite teachers found different and fun ways to work that information into the lessons they were

planning. This would usually involve there being multiple options for assignments and the students getting

to pick. If I remember correctly the teacher would give three choices that usually had one writing

assignment, something that that was hands-on, and something that was very artsy; which I all ways picked.

I always found the classes that did the interest surveys, in the beginning, held my attention for the entire

year, because the teacher was always doing things that I enjoyed and that was different to keep all the

students in class interested.

So, when I stepped into the role of a tutor I decide it was a good idea get together this information as

well. Below I have attached the survey I did on the first day of tutoring.

Survey 1:

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Answers:

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(A picture set my tutee from drew from the 1st lesson to show some of the new words she had learned how
to spell that week)

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From what I was able to tell my First-grade student really enjoyed filling out the survey and getting

the chance to show me what she could read and write, along with the things she enjoyed doing. I was able

to assess from the survey what level she could read and write, along with the fact that she really loved to

draw and color, which I used to my advantage a lot during our lessons. I used coloring in many of our

lessons and used the items that she said she likes from her survey to pick passages and books to read if

her teacher didn’t send something for her to read.

At the end of out our time together I gave my student the same survey to assesses if she had grown

in her reading and writing, and to see if her interest in activates had changed since we had begun our

lessons. Here are her answers from our last day together:

EVIDENCES: STUDENT WORK SAMPLES

Using the survey, as I stated before, I was able to put together my tutee’s love for coloring and

drawing to create the perfect lesson plans to help her learn and understand to the best of her ability. The

first thing I did was go to Walmart where I found these great workbooks that I incorporated into my lessons.

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They each had to do with different subjects like spelling, reading, and phonics which were all things that my

tutee needed to work on significantly. My tutee loved the workbooks and the fun activates that where inside

each page. It got to the point that I had to make the workbooks a reward to work on because she loved

working on them so much by the end of our time together.

Example:

(Example of a Phonic coloring worksheet from a workbook.)

Beside the work book, I created work sheets for most lesson where on one side I would give

four to five examples of words that had a certain phonics as a part of that word and then she would

have to read me the word, respell it, and then draw me a picture of that word. On the back, she

would have to come with four of her own words to go with that phonics and then spell it out and draw

a picture.

Example:

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Another activity we did was spelling, which was my tutee’s least favorite subject to work on, so I did

what I could to make it fun. The first thing we would do before we would even start studying the words is to

do a pre-spelling test to see which words she already knows and which words we needed to work on during

that tutoring session. After the pretest, I would look to see which words she missed and then we would work

on the ones she missed and the ones she had a hard time getting. I would have her do one of two things

depending on the day, some days I would just have her write each wrong word five times each, other days

I’d have her write the words twice and then draw a picture of that word while spelling that word out loud, and

other days we would do a mix of the two.

Example:

(1. Pretest) (2.Test results after we studied the spelling words)

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(3. Spelling Study Material)

EVIDENCES: PARENTAL LOG

First contact with the parents:

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This was my first contact and exchange with my tutee’s Mother. In the email, and then again when

we met in person, we discussed and then decide that I would get my tutee from her classroom every

Monday and Wednesday once her class let out from Harding Academy and take her to tutor in the

Cafeteria. Her Mother than when come and would pick her up at 4 o’clock. I was also told it was fine for her

Father or baby sitter to pick her up from tutoring if necessary, but if that were to happen her Mother would

text me about the change in pick up.

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Each day, once our tutoring session was over, I would talk to the mom about what we went over that

day in tutoring, what things she wanted me to work on with her next time, and any important quizzes and

test that might be coming up in the next week or so. This communication helped me frame the next session

and what my goal for that session was going to be. I would give the mom updates verbally as well as by

email and text about how the tutee was doing during our time together. The parent was great to work with

and she was very understanding the one time I became ill and had to cancel out lesson last minute.

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EVIDENCE: TUTORING LOG

Overtime we got into a routine of how each tutoring session would go once we reached the Harding

Academy Cafeteria. When we first walk into the Cafeteria the student would pull out her class folder to show

me what she had worked on in class, what she needed to continue working on, and any homework or notes

from the teacher she may have. After going through her folder, we would do one of two things, I would

always give her the choice, between working on reading and spelling and we’d work on one and then the

other. Then we’d move on to phonics and more reading and writing exercises. At the end of our time

together we would always review over spelling and everything that we had done during that lesson. If we

had time I’d give her five minutes at the end to color and unwind was we were done.

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EVIDENCE: RESEARCH BASED STRATEGIES

In the beginning, I tried many different research based strategies, but after a few weeks I quickly

realized that providing positive feedback on work was what worked best for my tutee. It is important for all

students to understand that the effort they are putting in is worth something and that they are worth

something, even if they make mistakes and do the wrong thing. As the character Abilene Clark says in the

movie The Help “You is kind. You are smart. You is important.” I think all children should know this.

I made sure that no matter what my tutee did I made sure to compliment something she did, even if

it was just how much her hand writing had improved. I then would go over what she had gotten wrong on an

assignment that way she knew she had worth, and that it doesn’t all way matter about the final grades,

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because you always have something to bring to the table. I would sometime bring snacks and coloring

pages to recognize her good behavior if she had a good day after a pretty rough one. This is what

encouraged her to learn and behave during tutoring.

REFLECTION: STUDENT LEARNING REFLECTION

I am so thankful for the semester I have had tutoring my tutee this Fall; it has been a wonderful

learning experience. My tutee was a wonderful, bright, and smart girl who when she puts her mind to it can

do anything. In the beginning my tutee came in a semi shy girl, who could barely read or spell, and had

trouble focusing. In the end, she was a girl who was excited, loud, and talkative during out tutoring sessions.

She went from barely reading and spelling at a first-grade level to reading and writing an advanced 1st grade

level with no problems. We still had some issues with focusing but she is only a first grade and she had

been in class all day, and then forced to seat for an extra hour for tutoring so it is understandable.

In order to get my tutee over being so shy around me I did what any good tutor would do and got to

know her and let her get to know me. For the first few weeks of tutoring we would spend the first five

minutes of our time together just talking about our days and getting to know each other, as the time went on

I could see a change in my tutee. She went from being shy and timed around me, to being excited and loud

around me.

When it came to improving her reading, and spelling we went about that the old fashion way by

having her spell words out and read different books and passages every day. We worked her spelling words

twice in each tutoring session and always made sure she read at least one book each session.

Overall, I saw so much improvement from my tutee this semester, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Having the opportunity to watch her learn and understand something right in front of my eyes was such an

amazing experience to be a part of and one of the reasons I want to be a teacher. Seeing her progress in

learning with learning new words and being able to read and spell them in such a short time span is

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something I’m so thankful to have be a part of. I’m so grateful that she could stay up with her classmates

and in some ways, get a head. I’m also thank that she came out of herself and trusted me enough to help

her grow in education.

REFLECTION: PERSONAL/PROFESSIONAL REFLECTION

As far as professionalism goes, I stayed as professional as possible, while continuing to

work and be happy and excited face throughout the process for my tutee. As for clothing, I wore

the same clothes that I had worn to school that day. I never wore anything unprofessional. Usually,

it was jeans and a nice blouse, but others it was a dress or skirt top combo. Never shorts and t-

shirt. During tutoring, I showed up for every meeting on time, unless it was previously discussed

with my tutee’s Mother. We meet every Monday and Wednesday at 3:00 o’clock for one hour.

There was one day where I could not make due to illness so I texted my tutee’s’ Mother the

morning of around 8 am. I contacted the Mother of my tutee through email and text throughout the

semester.

SELF-ASSESSMENT
For my first time ever tutoring I think it went really well and is something I would definitely

want to do again. This experience however has made me realize that if I tutor again, and as a

future teacher I should definitely stick to the older students. I learned that for myself and my own

sanity I really like structure and less coloring. I’m not a huge fan of glue sticks, baby scissors, and

crayons. I’d prefer a classic literature book discussion, a debate, or a play performance. I really

struggled coming up with fun crafty things for my tutee for our sessions and had a hard time

throwing my lesson plans out the window if something needed to change.

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Something else I’m thankful to have learned is that I’m really good at getting to know people

and making new friends. I was really worried when I started this process that my tutee was going to

hate me, but turns out when you take them time to get to know them and they know you; they will

like you for knowing things about their life. Knowing this now makes me, little, less worried about

having my own classroom and having all my students hate me. Hopefully at least one will like me

for knowing they’re about their life.

Next time, I would make sure to talk more to the teacher more than I did. Now looking back

my greatest lessons came after talking to my tutee’s teacher about what she need to work on and

if she had any tips that might help. I think that line of communication might be the key to help me

make me a better tutor. Overall, I benefited from tutoring and so did my student so it worked out.

Works Cited:

Killian, S., About the AuthorShaun Killian is an experienced teacher and principal with a passion for
helping students to excel. He believes that assisting teachers to adopt evidence-based education is the best
way to make this happen. Shaun is committed to bringing you practical advice based on solid research. You
can connect with him on following channels: • Follow on Twitter • Like on Facebook, Says, V., Says, S. K.,
Says, C., Says, T. H., . . . Says, M. J. (2017, July 11). Top 10 Evidence Based Teaching Strategies.
Retrieved December 12, 2017, from http://www.evidencebasedteaching.org.au/evidence-based-teaching-
strategies/

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