- Will was receptive to working on an initial reading comprehension activity. We read a short story together, as I pointed to each of the words, and Will was then tasked with responding to a few multiple choice and open-ended questions. He was first asked to make a guess about the story based upon the picture. Will responded with a correct prediction about how the story would unfold. He answered 60% of the questions correctly. It should be noted, this was a story intended for students in the first grade. We then moved on to working on sight word assessment (first grade as well). Will achieved 63% correct, or 19 out of 30 words correctly. Next, we worked on Reading Eggs on which Will performed well, answering 15 out of 16 questions correctly, or a success rate of 94%. He matched sounds accurately and worked on consonant blends. Although Will was not a huge fan of blending letters and made 2 errors reversing the b and d, he was able to correct his mistake once informed. He was encouraged to note the beginning letters or words and to begin blending with that letter in order to sound out the word. For example, Will would say 'asp' when shown the word 'sap.' Prompting him to note the initial letter facilitated his performance. Will responded well to praise and social reinforcements for his perseverance working on academic tasks.
Goals: create a summer cactus in a pot using paint, our hands, paper and scissors.
Create a cactus made of your handprint, add colorful flowers then cut out a shape of a pot and glue it to the image.
Will began playing a game of chess with his brother, but was easily re-directed and accompanied me to a classroom to work on academic skills. He was initially tasked with a Dolch word assessment and asked to read a list of 25 common sight words. On this task, Will was able to read 14 out of the 25 words. He grew slightly frustrated with some of the 4-letter words, but these comprised only a few on the list, and he was not pressured to read them as this was a preliminary assessment. We then moved on to another task aimed at assessing his counting skills, sharpening his eye/hand coordination and fine-motor skills. Will needed to connect dots in numerical order to reveal a picture. This addressed developing his tracing abilities, strengthening dexterity (fine-motor skills), and building his confidence in numerical sequencing. Will was elated to find that he drew Minecraft figures, and easily and readily named them all. He completed 5 sequencing tasks; we saved the most challenging - counting up to 68, for our next session. Will worked on blending two or more letters and repeating each sound that each consonant would make. He made an effort to recognize the alphabet letters first, as directed and was encouraged to read the sounds left-to-right, and then recall and say the sounds quickly enough so as not to distract from the blending. We finished our session reviewing some of the days of the week, using a song with which to facilitate recall. Will was cooperative in working on the variety of academic activities with which he was tasked.
Today was my first time working with Will. To break the ice and bridge familiarity, we began by watching two videos about the Toy Australian Shepherd breed. Will was excited to be given the opportunity to select the videos and elated to learn that the dog was named Cooper, just like his dog. I queried Will about the content of the material he had watched and he answered when prompted. I also asked him to compare similarities and differences. Although he experienced greater difficulty with this concept, he offered good examples which I explained and demonstrated accurately answered the questions. Will used building blocks with which to create an object of his choosing – he chose a Minecraft figure - and used different coloring implements with which to draw on a whiteboard. We finished the session playing a game of chess. Will coached me on the different pieces and the way they move, demonstrating strategic thinking and critical thinking skills in doing so.
