Past the beginning, we're halfway done!

That was a productive session.  It was a good experience talking with my student without his needing constant translation.  I chalk it up to his predictable growth as he's now been in school and exposed to a primarily English-speaking society for about four months.  He's made more friends and still has the support from home. He tackled our day's tasks as well as he always has.  He's writing more now.  And though that "more" is two sentences more than last time, it's growth and I'll take it!  In his re-readings, he made insertions which made sense and one would expect to read.  The next time he read it aloud in preparation for doing a cloze test on the passage, he made self-corrections and read it as it was written.  We talked about why he may not do as well as his "mainstream" classmates--lack of schema--and ways he can get around that.  He enjoys reading so why not read about things we he enjoys which will 1) help him build up scheme, and 2) help him practice English?  We looked at sources that will also help him with the subjects he's currently studying in school.  All in all, it was a great start!


Going over the schedule for this semester last night, I realized that though ten tutoring sessions is double of last semester and two hours makes it quadruple (or at least it does to this English person) it's going to go by fast.  We're already almost there if we subscribe to this quote by Horace, "He has half the deed done who has made a beginning" (http://www.quotelady.com/subjects/beginnings.html).

from http://static.zooomr.com/images/5741837_161afac3ed.jpg

We're going to have to be more thoughtful and dig down into our knowledge of literacy strategies to help our students succeed.  We've laid out our plans for ourselves and now it's time to follow it.  We know our students by now.  We just have to be patient and flexible when things don't pan out as we'd hope--our reward is waiting just beyond our reach.  Let's keep up our MAGECal support and encouragement of each other.  Let's do this, Team MAGEC!