Tutoring Elementary Students

So, a while back, I told you about my strategy for getting some tutoring jobs to make some extra cash. Chabot Elementary, the school that I'm a before and after school teacher has a "broadcast." Basically, that's an online newsletter. Interested individuals submit their ad to Chabot Elementary by email before Wednesday and their ad is included in the following week. The "broadcast" is displayed on the website. Parents view this "broadcast." I haven't looked at it myself, so I'm not quite sure how it is arranged.

In any case, I have good news. Thanks to advertising myself on that broadcast, I have a 1st grade student to tutor. Apparently, he cannot identify words or even break down words into their phonemes. That is, he can, but not independently. I'll be honest. I was a little nervous prior to meeting with this student. So, I did a few things.

The parent of this first grader told me who his teacher was. So, right away, I sought his teacher. I wanted her idea of what exactly his needs are. And, that's how I found out that he was behind on sight words and blending letters to form words.

When I met with him, I did a couple assessments just to personally have an idea of his ability to pronounce lower and uppercase letters as well as to break words into phonemes. It turned out that there were just a few letters that my student got confused on and if I showed him how to break words into phonemes, he could do it, but if I just asked him to do it, he wouldn't know where to begin.

I made some progress with my student. What was most helpful was giving him a formula like 'd' and 'ay' make "day." "What word do 's' and 'ay' make? Try saying it." After I did that, he started saying words on his own. Before, he wasn't blending letters into words on his own, so that was a huge development for me.

The parents were satisfied with my progress. They want me to come back next week on Mondays and Fridays. I'm pretty excited about that. That's $20 per hour for two hours a week. She said she would give me a recommendation if needed, but I agree with her husband that she should wait a little longer before doing anything like that. But, if this tutoring experience continues to go well, then I'll definitely have their word of mouth to rely on.