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.
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