Meagan TP#4

Jeffrey and I met at the library again on Monday, July 29th.  Our discussion began on superheroes for the third time, and he told me how his top three favorite are: Iron Man, Super Man, and Batman.  It was actually a perfect time to discuss it again, as I had prepared a writing activity using the words: Iron Man, Batman, Superhero, Tony Stark, and Bruce Wayne.  Last week, Jeffrey was able to complete his activity with the letters I, T, and P. Plus, he could spell Tony Stark, Batman, and Ironman the first time we met for tutoring, so I thought it would be enjoyable to let him practice some writing using those same characters.  The sheets I found were from an online site, that utilizes the same tracing methods found in Pre-K and Kindergarten writing assignments.  They're easy and quick to use, so young students like Jeffrey won't get bored too fast. He is a bundle of energy and is constantly moving when we converse and read stories.

Speaking-wise, Jeffrey makes the usual errors with certain sentence structures and misuse of nouns/adjectives (He likes to say, "I am from Korean."). And yet, with a simple correction, especially on a word or sentence we have discussed before, he will remember to use it and correct himself.  Newer concepts can confuse him, and he will explicitly state, "What?" or "What does that mean?" if he doesn't understand. For example, the concept of gender pronouns and those pronouns for a specific age gives him some trouble.  He doesn't quite understand that boy and girl are for describing young people and man and woman are used to describe older people.  This is common for most children when they begin to speak, so we practice this while reading and I ask him several questions about the characters featured in the story.

We read a couple pages of the book,  Spiderman and The Avengers.  He chose it as it featured of all his favorite characters and it was packed full of cool pictures.  Seeing as it was a graphic novel, the reading would have been very tough for him, so instead, I read some parts to him and asked him questions on the lines of, "Where is Spider-man in this picture?" "What is he doing" "When do you think The Avengers will need his help?" "What are the names of The Avengers?" He was excited to explain some of them, but soon grew bored and if it was a difficult question, he'd look away and say, "I don't know."

We finished the lesson then by talking about outer space and how Jeffrey has future plans to become an astronaut.  He explained that he grew fond of space after a class field trip to science museum.  There, they got to sit in a prop space shuttle and learn how astronauts prepare for launch and ultimately space exploration.  I asked him what kind of suits astronauts wear and why, and he promptly drew me pictures of himself in a space suit and helmet, saying these [helmets] were necessary for people to breathe. Before we ended for the week, I drew him in a space  shuttle to take home with him.