January 2010 Tutor Group Sharing Meeting

Discussions during this month's meeting:

Where do we drawn the line.. how do we remain personable yet professional as tutors?
ReadWest has some very specific guidelines as our foundation. We do become close to our students as we get to know each other, but we need to be careful if our tutoring is expanding into more personal arenas that are uncomfortable. Some guidelines include but are not limited to:

• Always meet in a public place, never your home or your student's home
• When you meet, meet the student at your destination, don't give them a ride
• Personal errands are not what we signed up to do, we signed up to tutor

If you feel that your student is expecting more than tutoring, please talk to Muncie for guidance.

BL and ESL Students are very crafty - they have used many tricks to get by.
They have used word recognition by sight, ways to avoid reading, and much more. Learn more about how YOUR student has managed to get by with their limited communication skills. Work to apply those 'tricks' that they are already familiar with during your lessons, but with a twist to help them reach their goals.

How to 'correct' a student in a positive way
Gold stars, encouragement, focus on what was right. Lengthy discussion ensued as to how to provide positive reinforcement and avoid negative methods of correction.

Using the sense of touch during lessons
Tactile learning seems to be key for many students. Using objects the student can pick up, move around, feel, and touching the materials in general is an effective method.

Homework
Many students would like to do homework but have very busy lives. We discussed ways to incorporate some homework.. email, journal writing, small mini goals along the way may work for some students and not others.

Record Keeping - Monitoring Progress

• The Spiral Notebook - instead of writing on the whiteboard (words/sentences with corrections) or a computer, do the work with your student in a spiral notebook. Keep the notebook to use every week. It's a fabulous record you can review later on to show them all the progress they have made.
• Send your student home with a perfect copy - After all corrections are made, have the student write the final copy of their corrected work on paper they can take home. This is what they can review, and share proudly with their family.

A good book to help set goals with your student, and for an abundance of regular "achievements"
The Spark: The 28 Day Breakthrough Plan for Losing Weight, Getting Fit, and Transforming Your Life
By Chris Downie

Don't let the title fool you. While weight loss and fitness are a selling point to this plan, the author talks in depth about goal setting. He discusses how to set long term goals, but additionally 3 phases of shorter term goals that are achievable and realistic steps along the way to reaching your major long term goal. With this method, he explains, you can achieve any goal you set in your life.

I am currently starting to apply this with my students. We will set their goals together. Using this method, for example, a student with a goal to pass the GED will have many opportunities for 'smaller victories' along the way. I encourage you to check it out.

You can also read more at www.sparkpeople.com

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend, it was an awesome sharing experience. If you were unable to attend, we hope to see you in February!