Tutoring Lisa* – Week Thirteen

I’ve noticed a pattern over the past dozen or so weeks. Each time we meet, Lisa* is sullen. She has a frown on her face, she’s incommunicative and borderline rude. Since I refuse to let her bring my mood down, I force her to interact with me. I ask about her weekend. I ask about her children. I try to pull something other than monosyllabic answers out of her, but it rarely works. As we move along through the lessons, she usually brightens up.

Today, we took several steps back to learning the fundamentals of phonics and began working on the letter B. We looked at a picture and her job was to tell me a story about what she saw and then write down words that began with B using what she saw in the picture. Not surprisingly, she refused to tell me a story and we moved on to writing down words. As she began writing down words, bits and pieces of a story emerged. She was talking! By the end of the session, she was laughing and enjoying herself.

It’s always the same. She comes in sullen and leaves smiling. I know she has a difficult life and I can’t even begin to understand the stress she lives under. It’s clear our time together lightens her load. So even though her behavior is frustrating at times, I know it’s temporary. I really do want to make a difference in Lisa’s life.

* Name changed to protect the student’s identity.

Tutoring Lisa* – Musings

As we get closer to the end of the program, I’m conflicted over whether or not I want to continue teaching Lisa* or begin teaching someone else. Of course, I’m assuming I have a choice in this and Lisa wants to continue the program and wants me to be her tutor.

I’d like to continue teaching Lisa to read and watching her grow. She’s committed to the program, but not as fully committed as I would like. Each week, part of her homework includes reading at least one book at home. She’s done this once. We’ve talked about the importance of practicing at home and she agrees; she just doesn’t do it and I’m not sure why. When I ask, she shrugs her shoulders and says, “I don’t know.” If she were practicing at home, I think we’d be a lot further along than we are.

I’d also enjoy the challenge of teaching someone new. I’d like to meet a new student, learn his/her story and see what kind of progress we can make together. It’s a fresh start and I think I’ll be even better the second time around.

Actually, I think I have made up my mind. A few weeks ago, I was sharing my frustrations of Lisa’s bout with rescheduling with a friend. My friend said that I was probably the best thing that ever happened to Lisa and she was a lucky girl.  The person who said this is a new friend. We’re just getting to really know each other and I value her opinion. She has great insight and really seems to get me. She made this comment a few weeks ago and it’s really stuck with me. Whenever I think about the decision ahead, I just can’t see letting Lisa go. She’s part of my life now. I want to know how she’s doing and how she progresses. Lisa doesn’t seem to have a lot of constants in her life and if she wants me in her life, I’ll be there.

*Name changed to protect the student’s identity.

Tutoring Lisa* – Week Twelve

I arrived at Literacy Advance this morning and looked around for Lisa. She’s always early, so if I don’t see her in the lobby, I look for her in the computer lab. There she was, on the computer, getting help from one of the staff. I stuck my head in the doorway, got her attention, and told her I’d be in our classroom getting settled.

At the top of our agenda today was taking a survey, which provides information for the organization to continue grant funding. I had taken my part at home so I could concentrate on helping Lisa complete her student survey. She did a good job reading the questions, with a little help from me, but had some difficulty answering them. An early question asked if the staff was friendly and the answer choices were “yes, very”, “yes, a little” and “no.” Her answer? “I don’t know.” So, I asked, “You don’t know if they’re friendly? Are they nice to you when you’re here?” “Yes, they’re nice. They say good morning and everything, but I don’t talk to them and they don’t talk to me. I don’t want them all up in my business.” Okaaaay. She’s clearly sensitive about people asking too many questions. We’re still working on the art of conversation. She finally ended up answering “yes, very.” We plodded through the rest of the survey, and getting Lisa to answer something other than “I don’t know” or “It doesn’t matter” was like pulling teeth.

We went over her homework and she read the ten sentences that she writes for me each week. This is one of my favorite parts because this is where I learn more about her without directly asking questions! Today I learned she likes to take her kids to the park and she doesn’t like waiting in long lines at WalMart.

We concluded our class by reading a short chapter in her book about daily inspirational thoughts. It was painful watching her struggle with words that are way beyond her literacy level. I was concerned that she’d lose her enthusiasm for reading if it was such an onerous task so when we were finished I asked her if she liked reading this book or the “other” books we’d been reading more. She said she like the other books, so back to children’s books we go. She’ll get to practice her reading with books like “Go, Dog, Go” which has good repetition in it, and we’ll have some giggles while we do it.

* Name changed to protect the student’s identity.

Tutoring Lisa* – Week Eleven

Literacy Advance’s program is twelve weeks long and next week was scheduled to be our last class. Neither Lisa* nor I was ready to end our sessions, and since we haven’t been able to meet twelve times, we worked out an arrangement with the school to extend our classes for three more weeks. Although Lisa has already reached her goals, she has more to learn and is anxious to do so.

In our phonics lessons last week, we ran across the word “check”. Every time she said the word, and it was said at least a half dozen times, she followed it with the statement that she hates checks. She actually hates checks and credit cards. She hates checks because if you write a check and don’t have enough money in your bank account, you end up having to pay even more. She hates credit cards because if you miss a payment the credit card company makes you pay a late fee and raises the interest rate. These are valid reasons not to like checks or credit cards. These comments, along with others over the past weeks, led me to believe she may have difficulty handling her finances, so I offered to help her set up a budget and tracking her spending. I’ve done it for others and it’s helped them. I hope she takes me up on it.

I received a phone call last Thursday from Literacy Advance informing me Lisa couldn’t make our Monday class. I was disappointed we wouldn’t get to meet, but I was pleased she contacted the school and gave plenty of notice. I look forward to seeing her next week.

* Name changed to protect the student’s identity.

Tutoring Lisa* – Week Ten

Driving to Literacy Advance today, I was not looking forward to talking to Lisa* about last week’s incident. She was jumpy and jittery when I got there, so I knew it was on her mind as well, and we’d need to sort out our issues so we could move on and be productive.  We discussed it and agreed to stay with our Monday morning sessions.

Lisa calmed down and perked up as we moved through our agenda. She’s still struggling with phonics and I’m not sure what to do. Next week, I’ll ask the LA staff for ideas on another way of teaching phonics.

When it was time to read, Lisa pulled “Grace for the Moment: Inspirational Thoughts for Each Day of th Year” out of her backpack. I was pleased she brought an adult book. I scanned through it, the language seemed pretty basic and Lisa seemed very proud of having the book. She needed a lot more reading help from me than usual, but she made it through and I think it did wonders for her self-esteem.

* Name changed to protect the student’s identity.

Tutoring Lisa* – Week Nine

Last Friday, Lisa* mentioned she might need to reschedule our next class because of something at her daughters’ school. She said she’d let me know. I didn’t hear anything over the weekend and prepared materials for our Monday session.

On Monday morning my telephone rang at 6:20am. Roused from a sound sleep, I leaped out of bed and ran towards my ringing, vibrating phone. My experience with unexpected early calls is not good. The last time I got a call that early I was told my father was code blue.

A bright and cheery voice greeted me with “Good morning, Jennifer. I need to be at my girls’ school today. Can we meet on Wednesday instead?”

“Lisa, I would have to rearrange my whole schedule.”

“Should I call you back later?”

I was a bit taken aback. “No.” I said, “I’m not going to rearrange my schedule. If you can’t meet today, let’s skip this week and meet next Monday.”

“Oh…you don’t want to meet this week?”

“Yes, I do want to meet this week, Lisa. I wanted to meet today. If you can’t meet today, we need to skip this week.”

“What day do you want to meet next week?”

“Our regularly scheduled day is Monday. Let’s meet then.”

Now perhaps this seems a bit harsh. Let me give you more information and you’ll understand why I did this. Two weeks ago, she gave me a week’s notice that she was taking her daughters to the doctor to get their shots and couldn’t meet the following Monday. My calendar was free, the school found us a new room and it all worked out. Last week, Lisa called over the weekend to tell me she had something at her daughters’ school on Monday and asked to reschedule. Again, it worked out for me and the school.

I understand the first schedule conflict could have been a fluke. The second time, however, established a pattern, with shorter notice.

This last time I had to draw a line in the sand. Lisa was testing boundaries. We’ll be having a discussion next Monday about the importance of keeping appointments.

* Name changed to protect the student’s identity.

Tutoring Lisa* – Week Eight

This week I wanted to do a goal check. Lisa* and I are more than halfway through the twelve-week program and it was a good time to see how far we’ve come.

Goal One: Send an email to her mother. When we first started, Lisa didn’t even know how to get to the Internet. Now, she logs on to her email account and corresponds with a select few. She’s sent emails to her aunt and to me. Her final step will be to send one to her mother.

Goal Two: Learn to read better so she can help her kids. Lisa’s reading has improved dramatically. She reads at least one book each week as homework and we read one together in class. She’s moved from taking more than an hour to read a beginner book to less than an hour to read a slightly more sophisticated book. Although she continues her habit of throwing out words that might fit contextually, even though they don’t resemble the written word in the least, she’s doing this less and less.

Goal Three: Learn to do math better so she can help her kids. Lisa’s math skills are head and shoulders above her reading and writing skills. We don’t do math in class, but I give her homework each week to help me determine her skill level. Her children are currently learning their multiplication tables and she’s a whiz at that. Every week, when I go over her homework, she’s done extremely well and glows as I review her work. She knows math is her strength.

The goal check was a boost for both of us. We’ve come a long way since we started working together. We are making progress!

* Name changed to protect the student’s identity.

Tutoring Lisa* – Week Seven

Lisa is making incredible progress. She brought in a cute book today and cruised right through it…well, “cruised” is a relative term. It took us less than an hour to read “Just in Time for New Years.” That’s progress for us.

I’m continually amazed at the big words she recognizes and reads, and the little words she can’t. She can read “Christmas” and “New Years Eve” but can’t read “able.” Yes, she’s memorized these words but it is still mind-boggling.

When we finished reading, I said, “I think you’ll be able to read this book to your girls on New Year’s Eve. Bring it back next month and we’ll practice reading it again.” She agreed and asked me when our twelve week session was finished. I told her November and she responded promptly with, “I’m going to sign up again.” I said, “Are you planning to ask for me?” I got the “Are you stupid?” look and she drawled, “Yeeeesssss.”

It was a very satisfying session.

* Name changed to protect the student’s identity.

Mount Costco

We weren’t thrilled about a Costco being built in our neighborhood but Brent got excited when a huge ramp was constructed to an upper parking level. The store has been open for months now but the second level retail area remains under construction. This works out well for Team Collins. Brent and Chloe have been climbing Mount Costco for months.

We waited for the store to close and for the vehicles to clear out. I headed up the ramp while Brent and Chloe impatiently circled the lot below. Positioning myself near the top gave me a great view. Brent gave me the signal and I started filming. He and Chloe began the steep ascent.  It was fast, relatively speaking. The second and third ascent, not quite so fast. Thankfully, third time’s the charm and that’s the first short film you see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC6TN_I3r9I

We then moved to the parking garage to film the descent. I was positioned away from the ramp to capture the turn at the bottom. I listened for the signal and began filming. Check out Chloe leaning into the turn for a strong finish!

Tutoring Lisa* – Week Six

I’ve asked Lisa* to bring a book to each class. Today she brought “The Puppy Who Wanted a Boy” and we spent one and a half hours reading it. Or rather, she spent one and a half hours reading it out loud to me. Before she would read each page, she would study the picture. Halfway into the book Lisa began giggling. She liked the story. Even though she struggled with many words, she was much more confident sounding them out this time…and she was certainly enjoying herself. I was ecstatic. If Lisa enjoys reading, she will learn so much about life. She can read about the past. She can read stories about the future. In books she can travel the world and meet all kinds of people. Books are the pathway to knowledge and knowledge is power. I want Lisa to be powerful.

* Name changed to protect the student’s identity.