I subbed for Jennifer today, and Kayla worked on her vocabulary exercises. She put a little more effort into it this time and was actually looking up words on her own. She got 2 worksheets done.
Kayla and I collaborated on revisions for her paper. Line by line we discussed the sentence structure, word choice, and sentence position in several paragraphs. Through this process Kayla practiced several writing strategies including spelling challenging and new words, using synonyms to avoid repetition of words in a sentence/paragraph, sentence rearrangement for clarity of thought, and deleting words in a sentence for clarity. Kayla also worked on spelling words with final e as a part of her targeted spelling practice.
Kayla reviewed and explored new vocabulary during this session. Using an interactive online quiz and SAT vocabulary book, she successfully completed several rounds of vocabulary practice. For spelling, Kayla worked on section 8 in the Better Spelling Program: Additive Elements. She learned to identify when double consonants are required and when to omit them. This set of exercises included both prefixes and suffixes.
Kayla and I reviewed her progress on her essay on Overcoming Fatigue. We reviewed the outline she produced, and we discussed how to take the essay and split the sections based on the outline. After expanding the sections and using MLA to create new section headings, she continued writing to expand each section. After completing the essay, Kayla and I co-viewed and took notes on the final sections of the Brain Research documentary. We discussed the sections and new information, and I challenged her to think about the pros and cons of advances in brain research and technology. Thinking critically about such topics gives her an opportunity to consider all sides of an issue, debate the sides, and prepares her for future essays. In later years of high school she is required to take research (or a reading assignment) and offer her own insight and input. This level of analysis is critical to college preparation and it is an important life skill.
Kayla continued to write her essay on Overcoming Fatigue by adding details to new segments. For the remainder of the session we continued viewing the Human Brain documentary, and we discussed important points for note taking, as well as real world examples of the issues discussed.
Kayla began writing her essay on Overcoming Fatigue. To break up the session, we also co-viewed and discussed the content of the next segment of the documentary on the Human Brain.
I substituted for Jennifer today, and gave Kayla her choice of what she wanted to do. She opted for vocabulary and worked her way through 3 sections. I noticed she often answered without really thinking about it, but when she slowed down she did much better.
