I asked Clay to write the concluding paragraph for the book report as homework. What he gave me was actually some of the weakest work he's done since we started. He handed in three lines with no punctuation, no structure, and no purpose. We went over how to write a conclusion and what kind of information he should include. His second effort was much better.
Clay has put in a solid effort on the book report so far. He has trouble recalling a lot of the details of the book, but with a little discussion it comes back to him. His writing definitely suffers when he's at a loss for things to say. He tends to revert back to his old habits, which is something we'll have to work on.
I finally got the chance to read the book this weekend, and was struck by how far off the story Clay was in our discussions last week. He clearly filled in a lot of gaps on his own. But we were able to make appropriate changes and get to work on the body paragraphs. Clay's 2nd paragraph of the day was an improvement on the first as he got a better idea of what "details" are important to include. We should have him in good shape y
We continued working on the book report today. I talked with Clay about topic sentences for paragraph and how to write the body paragraphs. He's pretty weak on the details about the book, but has a pretty solid understanding of the characters. He should be in good shape for next week.
Clay needs to write a book report on the Juvi 3, so we started working on that today. We talked about the format of a basic 5 paragraph essay, and then focused on the introduction. This is a different kind of writing than I've had Clay do before, so it was tough for him, but with a little help, he finished with a solid opening paragraph.
We're still working on writing and editing paragraphs. Clay has a bad habit of not paying attention to his grammar when he writes, which is ok, if he catches the mistakes when he proofreads. His editing has improved, but he still misses 2-3 big mistakes per paragraph. We'll keep working on it.
Clay did a pretty solid job proofreading his paragraphs from yesterday, but still missed some pretty glaring mistakes. Once I wrote the sentences up on the board, he was able to identify the problems, but he still needs to work on self-editing when writing.
I had Clay write 3 paragraphs about his Thanksgiving. His paragraph structure is pretty sound, but we need to work on developing his ideas more fully. His homework is to proofread and rewrite the paragraphs. We'll see how he does.
Clay's writing has improved a great deal, and it has gotten much easier for him since we began. He needs to focus on writing solid sentences every time. Sometimes he's in such a hurry to finish that he forgets about everything we've learned.
Clay did a great job with the plural noun worksheets. He's remembering all the special plural's and wrote some solid sentences using them. I then had him write three paragraphs about hurricane preparation. He did better, but still needs to focus more while writing.
