The only downside to tutoring is it's either feast or famine. Half of my students are "at risk" and are funded through agencies. All their funding ended last week, so we have to wait for renewal and new referrals from the agencies. : (  I received referrals for three of those students today, which is great, since tomorrow is our scheduled session.  I also have two siblings who are on hold until their account is current and this week is Spring Break for public schools; next week is Spring Break in the private schools. Sessions get cancelled...so, I have a whopping 6 tutoring hours this week!

At least I'm using my time productively. Not only am I tackling some projects around the house, but I've found some really cool teaching ideas on Pinterest. I am now a Pinterest junkie! I love the freebies I find on the Teachers pay Teachers website and many of these have been pinned from there. My Pinterest boards are under my name and the teaching ideas are on my Joyful Tutoring board. Come, check it out!

My favorite idea is the one I'm having the most difficult time implementing. It's an idea for teaching multiplication using "Duplo" sized Lego or Megabloks. They are practically impossible to find at garage sales, Goodwill, and Craigslist. I'm going to have to break down and buy a brand new set of 60! Ugh! I only need about 20! The worst part is I think I just gave my kids' Duplos to Goodwill last year (my kids have kids). The only reason why I donated them is because the only grandchild I have who lives locally is almost 14! Consequently, I've been downsizing my toys. Makes a case for hoarding! LOL

I can't wait to begin using my new teaching activities with my students! I'm going to make my favorite ones this week during my extra time.

There's Never a Dull Moment

Well, I faced my first major challenge with one of my students who is on the autism spectrum. I've been with him for several months and we've had relatively few skirmishes. He's very sweet and works very well for me. I usually get him through his frustrations pretty easily, but during our last two sessions, he's had major melt-downs. His class has a new teacher and the class has gone from no homework and focusing on 1st grade material (he's in 5th grade) to working on 2 & 3 step multiplication word problems and 20 spelling words/week! The homework Monday included writing all 20 words 3 times each and 10 of the above mentioned word problems. It's not a smooth transition.

I have been teaching him single digit multiplication since Christmas and he's doing well. I've just introduced single digit division and he's adjusting to that as well. He definitely needs TLC when learning new concepts. He's very creative in coming up with his own way of working through multiplication facts. He builds on the ones he already knows.

His grandmother has asked me to attend a parent/teacher conference with her and my student's dad. He's having terrible behavioral issues. Whatever is going on in school is affecting our tutoring sessions. I hope we get some answers at the conference and I can come up with strategies for our Monday sessions. He doesn't seem to be nearly as affected on Fridays.

This child is a challenge but I really enjoy him on his good days. On his tough days, he keeps me on my toes. On those days, he is so agitated and has had so much external stimulus that I readjust my demeanor and am extra calm and quiet while talking to him. I allow him to rant and don't interrupt-when he's quiet for a minute, I interject some perspective. On his good days, he enjoys good stimulus. We get a little loud and rowdy-he likes to tease and I allow him to use funny voices while reading.

What Can We Do Today?

Have you ever been at a loss for teaching ideas? Sometimes it's difficult to come up with activities and games when you're working one-on-one with students. Some games are suited for a whole class and can not be adapted, but take heart: there are activities to do other than worksheets when you are working with one student at a time. If your budget is tight, instead of buying overpriced games at your local school supply store or website, go to the many free teaching websites and download activities and game templates!

One of my favorite websites does have an annual subscription fee, but they offer a free 7 day trial membership. It is LearningA-Z.com. Each day, for 7 days, you may download 10 items (lesson plans, games, short picture books, etc.) You don't even have to give them a credit card number. When you have downloaded 5 items, they give you a pop-up 1/2 way warning and then stop the downloading automatically at 10. Besides the 7 day access to all their resources, they also have a link to samples! Woo-hoo! There are four divisions of the LearningA-Z website, including readingtutors.com and readingA-Z.com. You can get 7 day trial subscriptions for each division, giving you a month of downloads. That will keep your students busy and engaged for a long time.

Three Time's a Charm!

Don't you love when a strategy works? I have two new students ("Jeff" and "Sue") who are both autistic and brother and sister. Jeff is 11 and Sue is 8. I tutor them in their home. During my first session with Jeff, he did well-just a little active and easily distracted. Sue, however, was screaming in her room when I worked with Jeff and when it was her turn, she gave me about 10 minutes on task, then insisted she wanted to go play and began to cry. In the background, we could hear Spongebob on TV, so that didn't help. I distracted her with pictures on my phone for a few minutes and when she was calm, we worked some more. We played a learning game and when it was over, she again began to cry, insisting she had to play, wanted her dad, wanted her teacher... I told her she had one more activity to do which would take 5 minutes and then we could be done or she could cry until the end of the session, which was 10 minutes. I know, mean, huh?

Well, session 2 came along the next week and I brought a Treasure Box. Sue and I had a repeat of session 1. The pictures didn't work this time. So, as a last resort, I pulled out the Treasure Box and told Sue she could pick something out if she worked with me a little longer. I was worried she might decide she wanted her treasure right then and I would defeat the purpose, but she calmed down and began to focus. I cut the session short by 10 minutes, before she became frustrated and let her choose a goodie. I told her that the next time, she would have to work with me the entire time without any tears to get to pick from the Treasure Box.

Session 3, later that week: Sue was ready to get started as soon as I came into their home! The first thing I did was put the Treasure Box on the table. She asked about it and I repeated the rules for her to get to pick something from it. I worked with her first and we had so much fun! We played lots of learning games, read and did math. She stayed focused for an entire hour! Yeah!

It pays to be flexible! Have you found a "hook" that worked with a reluctant learner?

Why I love tutoring, cont.

Since that time, in November of 2009, I have had a lot of interesting experiences. I realize that at this point in my life, I wouldn't enjoy a classroom full of students, spending 1/2 of my time doing classroom management. There are so many hoops to jump through, not to mention the standardize testing! I am perfectly in my element using lots of creativity, finding what works to help my students learn. I see the results because I am with them one-on-one.

My first two students were brothers for whom English was a second language. They were pretty fluent, but their parents weren't, so that was a challenge. Luckily, I was originally a French & Spanish major, so I muddled through. Their tutoring was agency funded, so they had to be approved every so often. By May, they had finished with tutoring-their grades were up and they were working on grade level! What a high!

Since that time, I have had a wide variety of experiences! Our company had the Title I contract for private schools for a couple of years and I was assigned to an inner city Christian school. I grew very attached to my students there. A very interesting group! One morning, I arrived to find two police cars with officers leading one of the students toward the cars. When they opened the back door for her to get in, she went limp and dropped to her knees, so they had to pick her up to put her in. Another time, one of my students had punched a hole in the hall wall before I arrived. One of my other students had 3 fights before I got there another morning!

Right now, I have two brothers that I have been tutoring for 2 years, another brother and sister, a 19 year old with Down Syndrome who wants to read, a brother and sister with autism, a student with aspergers, and another who is out of state with ADHD and some eye focusing issues. My out of state student and I Skype tutor! I'll save that for another post. It's a hoot! I'm doing a test of the Skype tutoring for our company.

I never thought I had the ability to work with children with special needs. God had a different plan for my life and He gave me the tools to meet this new challenge! I love tutoring!

Why I love tutoring

Tutoring is my second career. I fell into quite by accident. I left my job of 27 years directing a Christian preschool and just assumed the Lord was leading me in the direction of classroom teaching in the public school system. After several months of emailing resumes for every available position in elementary ed, I began subbing in a Christian daycare. There was a hiring freeze on subs in the public school system, so I took what was available just to keep my background clearance current.

There was a 3 year old who was non-verbal and had just been diagnosed on the autism spectrum. I went to the local school supply store to look for a special pair of scissors. After talking to the store owner, who I'd know for many years, another shopper approached me and explained she had overheard our conversation, was the Education Director for a non-profit tutoring center, and would like to receive my resume. She gave me her card and I went home to consider my options. The funny thing was I had driven past the store while doing my errands and almost didn't turn around to go back; the office of the tutoring center was 30 miles away-the Education Director just happened to be in the area dropping off materials to one of the tutors.

I had the weekend to think and pray about it-Sunday night, I emailed my resume. The Education Director came back into town for what I expected to be an interview. Instead, it was a training which ended in my receiving information packets for my 1st two students!

more to come later......