Amanda Hetzel

EDUC 6421-01
Tutoring Reflection

Overall this past semester I have learned a lot from tutoring my tutee. Through both

assessments and activities, I have gotten to know the strengths and weaknesses in my tutee's

education. Assessments have seemed to drive my instruction very much this past semester.

Through assessments, I have been able to build a baseline of knowledge on my student and his

capabilities. Since there is such a large range of assessments to choose from starting with the

most basic letter-sound recognition and moving forward from there has been able to drive my

planning. Since my student struggled with this assessment initially I focused on this for a while.

Week by week I would be able to progress monitor my student to see his growth. By the time I

took a final assessment, my student was able to identify 24/26 letters in the alphabet. Although

through out progress monitoring, through letter sound activities, I did notice that on some days

my tutee would know all, and the next day he would forget many letters and sounds. This

inconsistency became very frustrating to me because it felt like all the hard work that we had

been doing was not showing.

Lexia has also been a driving force in my activity planning for tutoring sessions. At least

once a week I allow most of the session for my tutee to catch up on his Lexia minutes. In

observing the activities being completed on Lexia, such as beginning letter sounds, recalling

skills, sequencing of events, onsets and rimes, and CVC words, I have been able to create

meaningful activities that would relate to these current areas that my student is working on.

Along with this I have been talking with my tutee’s teacher about his Lexia progress and looking

at the data and recommendations from Lexia to continue to foster my tutee’s learning. Looking at

the data from Lexia has been extremely insightful because it allows me to see how long some

activities take my tutee and Lexia also gives recommendations on continuing learning on these

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topics offline. Some recommendations even give worksheets that I have used with my tutee and

this has shown great improvement in his knowledge. I am curious to see any correlation in

results during reassessments in the spring if there is a correlation between the online and in

person learning content. For most of this past month, we have spent a lot of time working on

onset and rimes. During these activities, the student would have to identify the onset when given

the rime and an accompanying photo to help identify the word. This also reinforced the

importance of beginning letter sounds that we had worked on for so long, where his progress was

not as noticeable before, had now become very noticed and improved upon. One thing that I

wanted to note about this is that I introduced my student to an alphabet chart that we use on a

daily basis to help with activities. This chart has the alphabet in both upper and lowercase along

with an identifying image to help the student remember the sound of each letter. After one day of

having introduced this chart and telling my tutee that he could refer to it whenever needed, I

found him using it daily to help him succeed in the activities we would be working on. In the

spring semester I plan to continue to use this alphabet chart and introduce new tools such as a

sight word learning ring and a word family flashcards that the student can continue to practice

with outside of tutoring session. Going back to the onset and rime practice, after about a week of

consistently working on these, my tutee turned to me saying that this activity was extremely

easy. This made me proud to hear because I knew that he was finally getting it. While working

on these activities my tutee also pointed out to me the syllable lengths of the words, which

shocked me that he was able to identify this aspect.

From here I decided that it would be best to take our lessons to a more challenging level

by moving on towards identifying rimes, or parts of rimes in words. My hope in taking it to this

next level would help my tutee in his spelling with some CVC words. These activities that I

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began to work on with my tutee became time-consuming and challenging for him. Ending letters

in CVC words was an extremely difficult task for him to work on so I decided to switch up my

instruction and work on our vowels and middle letter/sounds within words. Surprisingly this

seemed to be an activity that did not frustrate my tutee. Rather he enjoyed the activity and even

when working my tutee would surprise me when he noticed that all of the words had vowels in

them, without me even having told him this. I plan on continuing to work on this with him going

into next semester building up to him being able to spell many more CVC words. I have tried

having him spell some CVC words after some activities based on the words we have worked on

and my tutee yet again surprised me by correctly spelling all of the words by them sounding out

and referring to the alphabet chart. I can tell that his confidence in his spelling abilities is

growing.

To foster my tutee’s writing skills I have been practicing weekly writing prompts with

him. In doing this I choose a topic for him to write about. I have to note though that my tutee

likes to be a perfectionist when it comes to writing. When I tell him that spelling does not matter,

he becomes frustrated because he wants his work to still be correct. In an attempt to help him in

this aspect, I then began to write out sentence starters for him. After I wrote out the sentence

starters and reread them to him, I would talk with him about how he would like to fill in the rest

of the sentence. I would then take what he would tell me and simplify it for him to write down.

Rather than me spelling out each word for him, I would write it out on a post-it for him to refer

to when completing the sentence. I took this idea from a second-grade class that I had observed

during literacy coaching. I saw how much it helped the second graders there and I thought it

would work well for my tutee as well. This idea worked great with my tutee. Although the one

thing that I noticed was that even though I wrote out the rest of the sentence for my tutee, he

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seemed to copy it exactly how I wrote it, including my line break when I got to one end of the

post-it and sweeping to the next line. After telling him that he could continue on the same line,

he said that he wanted to copy it exactly how I was writing it. So now I am wondering if this was

the best modification to this writing activity because I don’t want my student to be relying on my

writing for him to complete a writing activity. I have tried to have my tutee try out the writing on

his own, although he becomes frustrated very quickly when he gets to a word that he does not

know how to spell. He is not one to try out invented spelling, I can sense the fear that he exhibits

during this time causing him to shut down and not want to complete the activity.

Through other assessments such as the book handling skills and multidimensional

fluency scale, it became apparent that my tutee was a nonfluent reader. Rather I have learned that

my tutee enjoys being read aloud to. While I am reading him a story, I am constantly asking plot

questions along with having him point to certain text features, which he is successfully able to

do. One of my favorite activities that James* and I have done together over these past three

months is reading the book series of The Magic School Bus. James* had shown me one of the

books when I gave us some free time to read towards the end of one tutoring session. From that

day on James* would constantly ask if we could read more of this book series. James*

thoroughly enjoys reading this series and even though these books can be longer than others, he

sits there paying close attention to every detail in the story. He also has shown me good recall

skills because some of the books would take two days to complete. After we could complete a

story, I would have James* draw me something that happened in the story to prove his recall. His

illustrations were very detailed and he would tell me about each tiny detail after finishing the

picture.

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Another reading activity that I have been working on with my tutee is echo reading

simpler more decodable books. Since James* is a reluctant reader, his teacher has told me that

many students in the class including him echo read stories during their Wit and Wisdom lessons

to strengthen their reading skills. Therefore I thought it would be best if I carried this practice

over to our tutoring sessions as well. We began reading some simple level A and B Fountas and

Pinnel books that I got from my literacy coach. We also began to read Pete the Cat. We

repeatedly read these books so that James* would become familiar with the texts as well as

practice fluent reading. The first time I read the book aloud, my tutee pointed out certain text

features. The second time I read the book aloud, I have my tutee echo read after I finish each

sentence and track the words with his finger as he goes through. Echo reading is common

practice in James*’ class that he is familiar with. I would like for him to try out reading similar

books independently outside of our meeting, although I know that he becomes frustrated when

he comes across a word that he does not know. Even though we have practiced sounding out

words, I think that James* likes to receive that instant reassurance that he is sounding out the

unfamiliar words properly. My hope is that he will gain confidence through continuous practice

during our lessons. Finally, on the third and fourth read through, we will either take turns reading

every other page, or I will read the book through and then he will read the book through. To

check for his understanding of the book I will sometimes orally ask comprehension questions.

We complete this process over the course of a few days. This practice has seemed to be working

and I would like to continue doing this through next semester. Since these decodable books that

we have been reading are very basic, I try to choose topics that he is interested in such as

science, social studies/history, animals, art, and sports. I have noticed that when a book is about a

topic that he enjoys, my tutee is more captivated by the story. I can see the determination in his

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eyes when he wants to figure out what is going to happen next in the story. I plan on continuing

to pull books that have an effect on my tutee. I want him to realize that we have choices in the

stories that we read and that they can captivate us and make us want to read more. I have even

noticed this in the free time that I give my tutee to read through the online Nashville Public

Library. He chooses books that he finds interesting and then has the books read to him through

the virtual read-aloud option.

Through all of these isolated activities, I think that my tutee is beginning to see the bigger

picture. Each of these isolated meaningful activities can form together to help strengthen his

literacy skills. His teacher has noticed as well that he is growing as a literacy student since the

beginning of the school year. My tutee has begun to shock me in a positive way in his retention

of the material that we have been working on by stating that many activities are becoming easy,

which means to me that we are able to move forward towards more challenging skills that we

have not been able to touch upon yet. I felt since the beginning that I needed to build a

foundation for his literacy knowledge and skills and grow up from there. We are finally

beginning to grow and work on sight words and spelling. In turn, these will help to build his

vocabulary and allow him to write and read more. Through my encouragement and positive

praise, my tutee's self-esteem in his literacy skills and abilities has grown as well. He has been

more trying in his work and does not give up as easily as he has in the past. I plan on continuing

to do this next semester because I have seen how much this has helped him grow.

For this upcoming semester in the spring, I have many goals and aspirations for my tutee.

I can see him becoming a stronger literacy student with my help. Since he is a reluctant reader

that doubts himself in his abilities I plan on continuing to review and build on his prior

knowledge of the alphabet. This is a major stepping stone in building him into a more adept

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literacy student. Working on his alphabet letters as well as identifying them as the beginning

sounds to words and blending them together to form a complete word. Upon building off this he

will begin to start to add more words to his knowledge bank which will lead him to build upon

his literacy abilities and begin to read. Along with this, I would like to work on his ability to

sound out words. This past semester he relied heavily on me helping him to sound out words, so

I would like to begin working on some of the more tricky letters that change in their sounds

when spelling. I think that this will also help with his spelling abilities. This will also help him

with beginning to read. Secondly, I think it would be best to work on sight words. These words

are a little more difficult to sound out compared to some other words. Although these words

seem to pop up more often in texts and writing. This will help me to improve his overall literacy

skills in both reading and writing. I would also like to improve on my tutee’s reading skills. My

hope is that by the end of this year he will be able to read books more independently and that his

attitude towards reading changes for a more positive outlook. Moreover, I think that throughout

the course of this year I would like to see his confidence grow in his literacy abilities. I can tell

that he is a bright student and that when he sees that he is improving in his reading and writing

capabilities he is able to complete tasks more efficiently and does not complain. I think that when

given the opportunity to show himself as a confident learner and receive positive feedback, he

will want to continue to have this feeling.

*James = pseudonym for students real name

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Amanda Hetzel
EDUC 6421-01
Literacy Coaching Reflection

Working closely with Mrs. McGlasson these past three months has been quite a learning

experience. I have learned so much about what it means to be a literacy coach. Prior to this

experience, I had no idea of what a literacy coach did, now I have come to realize that Mrs.

McGlasson is a woman that wears many hats and keeps the literacy world within the school stay

afloat.

When interviewing Mrs. McGlasson at the beginning of the year she described her vision

of literacy leadership as, “My goal, ultimately, for leadership is to grow leaders themselves so

that if I'm not here they can continue to know they don't need me and they won't be frozen. So I

want to grow my vision is to lead from the middle so they see me as more of a colleague than as

boss, but also to grow their leadership skills so that they can facilitate it on their own.” I can say

that within these past three months she has been extremely successful in doing this. From weekly

planning meetings to data meetings, to module 2 grade level planning, to formal walkthroughs

with the principal and dean, Mrs. McGlasson works from the middle to satisfy the needs of all

teachers and students while also reporting to her duties to the administration. I think that Mrs.

McGlasson holds this as one of her core values in her job from day to day. She wants everyone to

be satisfied with the work that they are doing and helps them to stay on track so that

administration does not come and yell at teachers. Mrs. McGlasson likes to hold teachers

accountable for their work and before the administration can come, she will chat with the

teachers who are behind to see how they could best improve on their lessons to be able to get

them up to speed. This is critical for teachers to feel that their literacy coach is on their team and

supporting them in the decisions and tasks that they implement.

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As I stated previously Mrs. McGlasson is a woman with many hats when it comes to her

literacy coaching. Every day there is always something to do there is rarely any downtime. Every

week on Wednesdays Mrs. McGlasson and I are prepping for the following day's weekly lesson

planning meeting. During this time we are usually looking at the upcoming week on the district

calendar to see if each of the grades are on track with their pacing. We then also see when the

next major assignments are and how many days/lessons the teachers will have. We then also look

at the assignments that students will be working on to see if there need to be any modifications to

help save on time. Mrs. McGlasson only likes when teachers make modifications when it is

absolutely necessary. This means that it is not taking away from the content of the material that is

being taught, rather than the cutting and pasting that can become time-consuming. She likes to

remind the teachers that the modifications that they make do not change the complexity of the

task significantly. Rather the little things that could take up time such as cutting and pasting

could be simply modified by having certain things premade on worksheets to not take away from

instructional minutes.

This past month I was able to also sit in on module 2 grade level planning. During this

time Mrs. McGlasson met with each grade level for an entire day to go over the next module that

would be starting after the Thanksgiving break. Prior to this, all the teachers were given the

materials that are going to be used for module 2 and the teachers had to come fully prepared to

talk about all of it. While sitting in on the meetings the teachers, Mrs. McGlasson, and I planned

a tentative weekly plan for most of the module. During this time we split lessons up where they

needed to be split for instruction, as well as looked at some things that would be challenging for

the students and the best ways to go about this. We all want to see the best outcome of the next

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module now that students and teachers are understanding the routine of what Wit and Wisdom

offers.

During this past month, I also had the opportunity to go on a formal observation with

Mrs. McGlasson, the principal, and the dean of students on a formal walk-through during their

Wit and Wisdom time. In the past, I have done informal observations with Mrs. McGlasson

where we would pop in and out of many classrooms seeing how things were going and Mrs.

McGlasson would leave the teachers a sticky note on a positive aspect of the lesson. This

experience was very different from the start. When I had arrived the principal and dean were

already sitting down with my literacy coach discussing what they would be looking for based on

the observation forms that they would be filling out. Then Mrs. McGlasson walked them through

what they would be seeing in the classrooms based on the planning schedule. During the

walk-through time, we went to observe two third-grade classrooms. They were both supposed to

be doing the same exact thing, but upon looking at them the lessons were starkly different. It’s

interesting to see the different approaches that the teachers took to the Wit and Wisdom lesson

and taught it. Even though it is supposed to be taught the same. After being in the classrooms we

went back to Mrs. McGlasson’s room to have a debrief. During this time we discussed

everything that we noticed and wondered about what we saw. During this time we also went

back into the curriculum to see if the teachers were following exactly what had been laid out for

them to do. Then they discussed how they would be debriefing their observations with the

teachers. They decided since the lessons were starkly different from each other that it would be

best to talk to the teacher separately. These observations were prior to module two planning and I

can say that there was a difference in the teachers after they had these observations and chats

with the principal and dean. The teachers seemed to be more on top of what they had to do and

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how they could make the lessons enjoyable for the students as well. After all, the teachers always

want to make learning fun for the students.

Next semester I hope to have many more experiences like I have this past semester. I

have learned so much from Mrs. McGlasson. I hope that we will have more time for observations

as well as co-teaching within classrooms. I am very excited to see what this next semester holds.

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