Joshua is very much into A Child Called It (which he is reading at school). We discussed the book at length from analyzing the characters to predicting the plot. Joshua made some very insightful connections between A Child Called It and another book he had read in the 6th grade, Alabama Moon. I was very fascinated by his thought process and ability to find similarities in such detail.

Joshua was not as successful when taking the FCAT on his own (without discussing his thought process with me as he answered the comprehension questions). He answered 63% of the questions correctly. He was surprised at his score and was resistant to reviewing the questions. This was mainly because many of the articles in this sample FCAT were about controversial topics. Joshua disagreed with the author in one article in particular, and as a result, answered the questions based on his own inferences and opinions rather than those of the author.

Joshua continued to excel in his active reading. This time, I challenged him to implement the techniques on his own without my aid. He was quite successful! Moreover, he was willing to apply active reading because he was able to see direct results of understanding and answering the questions more effectively.

Joshua was in a much better mood this day. He was eager to learn these techniques as he had not previously learned them in his school. He was very successful in applying the techniques we read and discussed into his practice questions. As a result, he answered every question but one correctly (his best yet!).

Joshua was not in a good mood this day because he had taken 5 tests at school. He had previously learned about some of the topics we discussed, so he was not in the mood to review them or implement them. He did, in the end, try it (and he was, in the end, successful).

Joshua was frustrated during this session because vocabulary exercises are difficult for him. I believe he finds them difficult because of his trouble with spelling. It tends to overwhelm him. As such, I tried to integrate this process into reading. Joshua was able to talk me through his defining process. Of course, if he wasn't able to correctly define a word using context clues, he became frustrated. Looking up words in the dictionary and/or thesaurus was very tedious (but necessary) for him.

Joshua did not do as well on the practice test (30/45) as he typically does when we go through tests together. He told me that he was stressed from a test he had taken previously in the day at his school. We will continue to do practice tests the following week, and I plan on comparing the scores with one another to see if there might be an underlining problem (i.e., question type, timing, etc.).

Joshua was really determined to complete the brain teaser. I think the warm-ups really help him to start thinking without realizing it. I was surprised how focused Joshua was. He had minimal interruptions and even ready silently today. I was really proud of him!