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Autumn Nuest

Vicki Lanius

EDU 140

27 October 2017

Part 1: Student Background

The girl I gave the student interest survey too was named Grace. Grace is a 6 years old

girl and is in Kindergarten at Wayne Trace Elementary in Payne, Ohio. Grace told me that her

favorite subjects in school were Recess and Calendar (I asked what this was but she had a hard

time explaining it to me). I asked what she liked to do after school to which she replied she liked

to sleep. The next question I asked Grace if she had a favorite book but she shook her head and

couldn’t think of one. Grace also told me that she really liked to read and liked when someone

read her books.

Part 2: Connecting Tutoring to Research

The three categories we mainly covered in my 4 days of tutoring were Phonological

Awareness, Phonics, and Vocabulary/Word Recognition. The first thing we did in my tutoring

Vocabulary/Word Recognition, during this the lessons included looking at sight words and color

words the students should know. The second and third main thing we worked on was

Phonological Awareness and Phonics, for these ones me and cooperating teacher worked on

helping the students sound out words and to listen carefully to the sounds and for the students to

be able to repeat the sounds back to us.

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The first category we covered on in my tutoring sessions was Vocabulary/Word

Recognition. “Word Recognition is the ability of a reader to recognize written words correctly

(“Assessment Strategies and Reading Profiles”).” Word recognition is an important part of being

a fluent reader. As students in kindergarten first learn how to sound out words. They then begin

to recognize these words quickly after they have learned them. Sight words becomes important

for them as they begin reading sentences. This makes students a fluent reader. Readers are also

able to associate known words with an unknown word, an example is, “Readers also begin to

notice and apply known spelling patterns to decode new words by analogy, for example, using a

familiar pattern such as consonant-en" as in Ben, hen, Ken to decode an unfamiliar word like fen

(“Assessment Strategies and Reading Profiles”).”

For the tutoring session we had notecards with sight words on them and had the students

read off the words. The students knew the words right when they saw them. It wasn’t very

difficult for the students. The next part of the session we held notecards with the color words on

them. The students have been working on their color words in class so this is way these words

were included. Most of the words on the notecards a student got almost right away because they

were able to recognize them easily. There was some that were more difficult.

The Second category we covered in the tutoring sessions was Phonological Awareness.

Phonological Awareness “is a person’s ability to analyze and manipulate the sounds of language,

including units within words and/or entire words (Culp).” It is important for teachers and parents

to know that a child’s development in phonological awareness is beneficial to help with their

reading skills as they grow (Jamaludin). To help the students at my tutoring with this

phonological awareness, we worked on sounding out words. I had picture cards with different

pictures on them and the students would tell me the word and then tell me what beginning sound
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they heard when they sounded it out loud. They then had a bingo card with different letters on it.

The student would match the sound to the letter by putting a chip on the card..

The second category we covered in the tutoring was phonics. “Phonics is the science of

sound. It’s also a way of teaching reading by focusing on how letters and groups of letters of the

alphabet look and sound (Phonics)”. In my second tutoring we had notecards with the words of

color on them. The whole class would say the word together and then we would help the students

to connect what sound matched what letter in the word.

It’s important for students to learn from a young age the importance of knowing and

learning phonics. Without learning phonics, it would not be as easy for students to be able to

decode words and learn new words on their own. “If students cannot decode, then it does not

matter how much phonics they supposedly know (Cunningham).”

Part 3: My Reflection
I was nervous at first going into my tutoring session because I had never really taken

charge and actually helped a student with a subject they struggled with. My time at the

elementary school actually ended up being 5 to 7 kindergarten students the 4 times that I went.

The cooperating teacher that worked with me was super friendly and explained each lesson plan

that we were doing that day. The cooperating teacher definitely made me feel a lot more

comfortable and was super encouraging to me. If I felt a little stuck or felt like I was losing the

students focus she would help me redirect them to focus again on the lesson.

The students were pretty excited about having a college student being in class with them

and were sad when I told them it was my last day there. I feel there were certain kids that

struggled more than others. There was one little boy who had a very hard time focusing so I felt
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myself trying to help redirect his focus on what we were doing that day. There were other

students who definitely understood what we were doing and caught on quickly. It made me

realize how students in the same class could be on such different learning levels from each other.

I feel like overall I had a good learning experience at the school while doing my tutoring

assignment. On my first day compared to my last day I definitely felt a lot more

confident/comfortable going in and teaching the students what they struggled with in school.

Since I started in the career of early childhood education I have found myself often wondering if

this is the right career for me. But I was reminded again as I taught the students with subjects

they struggled in that this is the right career for me.

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Works Cited:

Assessment Strategies and Reading Profiles, Literacy Information and Communication System,

lincs.ed.gov/readingprofiles/MC_Word_Recognition.htm.

Culp, Mara E. "The Relationship between Phonological Awareness and Music

Aptitude." Journal of Research in Music Education, vol. 65, no. 3, Oct. 2017, pp. 328-

346. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/0022429417729655.

CUNNINGHAM, JIM. "Supporting Phonics Instruction: Laying a Foundation for

Reading." District Administration, vol. 53, no. 6, June 2017, pp. 58-59. EBSCOhost,

wgu.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=a9h&AN=123289984&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Jamaludin, Khairul Azhar, et al. "Research and Trends in the Studies of Phonological Knowledge

and Reading Development: A Review on Selected Journals." Malaysian Online Journal

of Educational Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, 01 Jan. 2014, pp. 27-36. EBSCOhost,

wgu.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1086237&site=eds-live&scope=site.

“Phonics - Dictionary Definition.” Vocabulary.com, www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/phonics.

Tutoring Session day 1:

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Lesson objective:
The student will understand their sight words, Words of different colors, reviewing the word of
the week which was ‘see’.
Lesson Materials:
Paper with tracing and writing the word see
Lesson Activities:
The teacher will hold up cards with several different sight words
She will ask if the students know any of the words
Pick a student who raises their hand
After the student says the word the teacher will sound out each letter/sound in the word.
The teacher will hold up cards with different names of colors on them.
The teacher will ask if anyone knows the word.
She will pick on a student with their hand raised
If none of the students know the word the teacher will sound out the word and make sure the
students can sound out the word too
The students will each get a worksheet with their word of the week on it which is SEE
The students will first trace the word, then write the word, then highlight all the times it says see
out of 16 words
The students will help the teacher make a sentence using the word see.
The students will write the sentence on their own
Then the students will cut out 5 letters and pick the 3 letters that says SEE.
Lesson Evaluation:
I will know the students will learn from the lesson if they are able to read and sound out words
the teachers show them. I will know the students learned if they are able to complete the work
sheet.

Tutoring Session day 2:

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Lesson Objective:
The students will listen to the word given to them and figure out the first letter of the word by
sounding it out then match the letter to their bingo card.
Lesson Materials:
Bingo cards, picture cards, bingo chips,
Lesson Activities:
The teachers will explain the game to the students
The teacher will hand out the bingo cards/chips
The teacher will hold picture cards up for students
The students will tell the teacher what the picture is and then figure out the first letter of the
picture. Example: Man, the first letter is M
The students will sound out the word and the letter it begins with
The students will then look for that letter on their bingo card and place a chip there if they have it
Lesson Evaluation:
I will know the students have learned from the lesson by letting each student sound out the letter
correctly.

Tutoring Session day 3:

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Lesson Objective:
The students will understand how to read/sound out their color words.
Lesson Materials:
Notecards with Color words, Worksheet with words students can trace the color letters.
Lesson Activities:
The teacher will hold up the note cards and ask the students if they know the word
The students will raise their hand if they know
The students will then sound out the word along with teacher
Each student will receive a worksheet with several colors on them to trace the letters with a
pencil
Teacher will hold up the notecards again and ask the children to read them
Lesson Evaluation:
I will know the students have learned the objective if they can read the notecards at the end of
the 30 minutes.
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Tutoring Session day 4:

Lesson Objective:
The students will understand that different words rhyme with each other by listening to the
sounds.
Lesson Materials:
Puzzle game with different pictures on them and the name of the picture on the back.
Example: The front has a picture of a ball, the back says ball.
Lesson Activities:
The teacher will explain the game to the students
The teacher will pass out the different puzzle pieces to the students but keep the match to it
The teacher will then lay out three options of puzzle pieces with pictures at the table and ask the
first student to say the name of the pictures and see if one rhymes with one of their cards
The student will then take the matching puzzle piece and put it together with their card
The teacher will repeat these steps with all the students
The teacher will then flip the puzzle pieces over and ask the students to point out what letters are
the same in the rhyming words.
Lesson Evaluation:
I will know the students have learned the objective if they are able to tell me what word rhymes
with their card.