Piero began the session with a written conversation with me. As we asked each other questions, I would discuss and have him correct any mistakes made in the dialogue. I then showed Piero a picture of a soccer match and he wrote a creative writing story about the picture. As he wrote, we discussed any errors. We finished the session by having a shared written discussion about the weekend.

Our session began with a review of our reading of Charlotte’s Web chapter 6. We reviewed the pronunciation of the words hay, congratulations, and goslings. We then read chapters 7 & 8. As we read, Piero did a terrific job with making predictions and analyzing the characters and events. Although we are working to increase his descriptions of the pictures more to sentences and inferring vs. just labeling, Piero did a nice job with providing more key details in the illustration today. Terms we studied from our reading today include pleasant, rigid, conspiracy, adores, imagination, and immediately. We completed the fill-in-the-blank summaries after reading each chapter. Piero was reminded to read the full sentence before guessing his answer to take advantage of the context clues. We enjoyed a review of the chapter 6 vocabulary with a crossword puzzle. We discussed the words with example sentences and how each tied into the book. Piero scored a 21/25 on measured tasks. We then played a Jeopardy game customized for Piero including the categories of analogies, possessive pronouns, and personification. The final category focused on high-frequency vocabulary words from our text, offering Piero a fourth look at some of this terminology. Piero did a terrific job and was even able to explain some of the personification. Lastly, we looked at more photos of common everyday household items from the bathroom and the kitchen. We are creating an English picture dictionary of common items. I was surprised to discover that many of these words are missing from Piero’s English vocabulary and we will continue to focus on this area a great deal in our remaining sessions. Oral language directed activities: We wrapped up the additions to our Marvel project with discussion of the characters Gamora and Nebula. Piero brought a fun Spiderman pen for his share and describe item. We worked to revise several sentences using a pronoun and descriptive words for how it feels. He did an amazing job with his other homework task, which was to create his own “Would You Rather” sentence! We wrapped up the day with captioning funny pictures which we worked to put his comments into full sentences and expand with adjectives and prepositional phrases.

Piero had a fantastic session today! He was very engaged and communicative throughout! At times he needs prompting for responses, but today he was really responding very timely and was more interactive! He often does not ask questions and did so several times today. I was so extremely proud of him!

Piero was given a short story describing the history of the Titanic. The short story contained various mistakes in grammar. Piero had to recognize the mistakes and correctly write the sentences that were written incorrectly. Following this exercise, I wrote questions for Piero to answer. The questions required Piero to write the answers in past tense and change the pronoun that was used in the question.

Today we kicked off our session with literature. We reviewed chapter 5 from the paragraph summary we completed yesterday. We then performed a shared reading of chapter 6. We discussed items related to recall and analysis of the events of the chapter. Piero gave information about one of the illustrations and we are working to increase the information he can provide. As we read, we discussed the pronunciation and meanings of words such as equal, hauled, anxious, dud, and morals. Piero scored 7/8 on his follow up fill-in-the blank summary for the chapter. Next, we reviewed vocabulary from chapters 4 – 5 with a crossword puzzle and fill-in-the blank sentences using a word bank. The sentences portion of this activity are usually challenging, but today Piero scored 9/11! I was quite impressed! We then continued our work with possessive pronouns. Piero worked to complete sentences with the proper possessive pronoun with three to four choices provided. He did a great job, only having difficulty with the word “whose”. Additionally, we worked with labeling familiar items. Today we focused on men’s clothing. Piero did not know the terms for “boots” and “pants” independently, but indicated he’s familiar with those words. We will continue to review more regular English words. Lastly, we continued the reading comprehension themed Jeopardy that we started yesterday. Using the Jeopardy game increases Piero’s verbalizations as he must select the category and value and provides a nice opportunity for more student-directed learning as he is making choices. We worked together on several of the tricky questions in topics related to main idea and details, logical order, summarizing, and problem and solution. Oral language directed activities: We enjoyed some discussion of the characters Star Lord and Drax as we added them to our Marvel project. Next, Piero shared his item for class today which was a stuffed crocodile. He responded that it felt “good”. I provided opposite characteristics to aid in him providing more details such as soft and smooth. We also enjoyed some conversation about pizza. Finally, Piero chose our Would You Rather questions for his final activity. In addition to some other responses, he explained why he would rather be an Olympic Athlete instead of president and why he’d rather drink sour milk instead of eat rotten eggs!

Today we began with a review of chapter 4 as Piero read through the summary he completed yesterday. We then moved on to reading chapter 5. Wilbur meets his new friend Charlotte the spider! As we read, we worked on recall, analyzing the events, and inferring. Piero also explained what was being displayed in two illustrations. We then completed the fill-in-the blank summary after reading and Piero scored 18/25 on measured tasks. We also discussed pronunciation and meanings of terms for words such as errand, stared, blushed, detested, and plotting. Piero then completed a crossword puzzle to reinforce understanding of key terms from chapter 4. Next, we continued working with possessive pronouns. Piero was given sentences to complete with the proper pronoun with three to four choices provided. He did fairly well with these and we will continue to practice. We then worked on drawing conclusions. We completed the activity that Piero started yesterday in which he read a short passage and made reasonable conclusions about the events in the story using the information given and three answer choices. Piero is able to identify the correct choice, but then has difficulty explaining why he made the choice. I’m excited to see him drawing the correct conclusion and I will continue to provide modeling in these more challenging situations which require a greater burden of verbalizing in English. Lastly, we began a game of reading comprehension Jeopardy. These categories focus on main idea and details, summarizing, logical order, problem solving, and author’s purpose. Piero scored 3/5 on competed questions and we will continue this activity tomorrow. Oral language directed activities: Today we had fun discussing the character Hawkeye for our Marvel project. We also introduced a new activity in which Piero was tasked to bring an item to his session and he then worked to describe it. He brought a Marvel action figure and explained to me that he got it from a friend from his birthday and that he likes it because the head moves. We revised a few of his statements for clarity. For his final activity, Piero chose to caption some more funny pictures. While he focused on the concrete items in the picture, he was asked to expand and provide what he thought the boy was thinking.

Piero was given a picture of a haunted house and he created a short story about the picture. We discussed and corrected any spelling and/or grammar mistakes as he wrote the story. I then presented Piero with 15 questions where he had to answer them by changing the verbs to past tense and changing the pronouns for correct usage in the sentences.

Today we began with a review of Charlotte’s Web chapter 3 through the reading of the summary Piero completed yesterday. We then read chapter 4 entitled Loneliness. We discussed the meaning of loneliness as well as words such as gloomily, budge, gosling, and cautiously. Our discussion focused primarily on recall and analysis. Piero then completed his fill-in-the blank summary review, in which he scored 7/7! Next, we reviewed the vocabulary from chapter 3 with a crossword puzzle and then a fill-in-the blank sentence completion with words from chapters 1 – 3. These sentences are written reinforcing the content of the book as well, just adding one more tool to his belt in building vocabulary and promoting understanding of an English-written novel. To reinforce our discussion of author’s purpose from yesterday, we worked through a few more examples in which Piero had to identify: persuade, inform, or entertain. He’s done very well with this concept, with a visual aid for support. Lastly, we worked on an activity focusing on drawing conclusions. Piero read several short passages and then chose the correct answer from three choices to infer the answer to the question about the events of the passage. Sharpening the skill of inference will help him to better analyze text and identify information that isn’t explicitly stated. Oral language directed activities: Today we had fun discussing the character Quicksilver for our Marvel project. We focused on several sentences in what we wrote for our project to work on pronunciation. This included several verbs with the -ed ending and we practiced not verbalizing the -ed portion of the word as “ed”. For our final activity, Piero chose to caption some funny pictures. We worked together to expand and describe. For example, in a picture of a squirrel eating corn on the cob, we also discussed that his cheeks were packed full! We wrapped up our session with some conversational English practice discussing what he had for breakfast and about returning to school.

I began the session with Piero writing conversational questions that he answered. He also wrote and asked me questions and I responded as well in writing. This enabled me to discuss and correct any spelling, grammar, and language mistakes in his writing of English. I then had prepared present tense sentences and Piero had to write the sentences in the past tense. Most of the verbs took an irregular past tense form. I concluded the session with Piero using the correct form of There is - There are and Their in given sentences.

This afternoon we reviewed chapters 1 – 2 of our reading of Charlotte’s Web. We then completed a shared reading of chapter 3. We are still really working on fluency with pace and word clarity. As we read, we made predictions as well as recalled and analyzed events. We discussed the pronunciations and meanings of a large handful of words including stool, bored, trough, repeats, and slops. The book has nice illustrations which provide a wonderful opportunity to engage in more open discussion of the book while still providing support through the picture. As we read relevant text, Piero is then asked to explain what he sees in the picture, increasing his ability to further discuss the text. We then completed a fill-in-the blank summary paragraph to reinforce the reading. Piero scored 15/22 on measured tasks. We then reviewed the vocabulary from chapters 1 – 2 with a crossword puzzle. Next, we completed our Where Am I inference riddles in which the descriptions led us to a candy store and a garden. We then enjoyed a conversation about the Marvel character, Scarlet Witch. Finally, we returned to the suffix -ness from our earlier session. Piero worked to complete a few more of the fill-in-the blank sentences. Some of these words were unfamiliar to him and we spent some time discussing the meanings of words such as shyness, loneliness, and baldness.

For our first session, we began with a review of possessive pronouns. Piero read sentences and provided the correct possessive pronoun. These are a bit tricky for him and we will continue working with various pronouns. Next, I introduced author’s purpose. We discussed the three primary reasons for writing: persuade, inform, or entertain. We went through various types of each and then Piero worked to label examples of each. He did a terrific job with a visual aid representation for support. We then moved on to categorizing. We worked to name items in three different topics (animals with wings, things that are heavy, and items at the beach). Prompting and cueing were provided to generate more words. Finally, we began working with the suffix -ness. Piero read through a word list of root words combined with -ness. He then completed several fill-in-the blank sentences as our time ended.