EDU 345 SFA Tutoring Summative Report

Fall 2018

Emma Baugher
 Introduction to Tutee

Name: Quinton Grade: First

Throughout the past weeks of tutoring Quinton, I have been extremely impressed by both

his academics and behaviors. After my first tutee moved to Columbus, I was assigned to work

with Quinton, which means that I have known him for a lesser amount of time. However, I am

astounded by how much we have been able to achieve in the past two weeks. Quinton has a

quieter personality and he is very kind, attentive, and polite, although he does enjoy talking about

his family and his interests, such as playing outside and reading. I was very excited to discover

that Quinton enjoys reading and his family reads to him at home. This desire to read and support

from home probably impacted his success on the assessment.

Preassessment Results

Quinton was quite successful in part one of the assessment. He mastered almost every

section of Phonemic Awareness, only developing in objective PA (2). Quinton is also proficient

in letter skills, mastering all of his letter names and a large majority of the regular letter sounds.

He was able to write most of his sounds, except he struggled with some of the blends and the

irregular sounds. In part two of the assessment, he did have more trouble reading whole words

and sight words.

Despite the fact that Quinton was not as successful on part two of the assessment, there

was one activity I completed with Quinton that impacted my view of his abilities. For the first

part of the assessment, I brought the book The Napping House to use during the concepts of print

section. We had extra time after completing the assessment and I asked Quinton if he wanted me

to read the story for him. In response, he asked if he could read the story to me. With some

assistance on the more complex words, Quinton was able to read almost the entire story by
himself. I was extremely impressed by his ability to recognize patterns in words and identify

repeated words. From this experience, I realized that Quinton responds to learning the words and

the sounds more when he encounters them in context. He is also much more excited to learn

when I present him with a book rather than flash cards. After we finished The Napping House, he

asked me if I could bring more books to read together. I am excited to try to incorporate more

stories within our tutoring sessions and activities, for him to be more excited about learning and

reading.

Although Quinton was successful in mastering most of his letter sounds, he did struggle

in part two of the assessment with the Sight Words section. He also struggled specifically with

writing and spelling words in the last portion of the assessment. Quinton was only able to spell

four words out of the nine sets of words presented. Due to the fact that he struggled significantly

with reading and spelling whole words and he did not master the required sections, I stopped the

assessment and decided to use tutoring plan two.

My main goals for my time with Quinton are focused on Word Skills and Sight Words, as

well as continuing to master some of the more difficult letter sounds. Quinton and I set a goal for

ourselves at our last tutoring session. Our goal for this tutoring plan is for him to learn at least

four new sight words per week. I think Quinton is excited and determined to be able to read on

his own because he set this goal by himself. I hope to see improvement in his ability to read both

sight words and regular words. We will achieve this by focusing on learning the more difficult

blends, such as “ee” as in tree and “ue” as in glue. He also struggles with some other blends, like

“sk” and “st” that I hope to work on throughout our time together. My goal for Quinton is for

him to be able to hopefully move up to tutoring plan three within the next few weeks and for him

to master more of the words on the assessment. I know how much he is excited to read
independently, and I desire to help him achieve this goal while we are working together this

semester.

Formative Report 1 Results

After completing 4 weeks of tutoring with Quinton, I reassessed the concepts that were still

developing on the original preassessment. While reassessing I found that Quinton had improved

his phonemic awareness (PA) skills through our time together. The reassessment showed that

Quinton now had 100% mastery of the PA sections of the assessment. In regard to letter skills

(LS), Quinton struggled with blended sounds, as well as, irregular vowel sounds and blends.

After working with Quinton on certain sounds using picture cards, the reassessment results

showed that Quinton made some progress in this area, however, he was still developing. Quinton

was also still developing in both word skills (WS) sections of the assessment after reassessing.

Although he made some improvements in WS section 1, he was still struggling with spelling. In

the final section of the reassessment, sight words (SW), Quinton had greatly improved his

knowledge, however he still had not mastered the set.

Formative Report 2 Results

After reassessing the second time, following four additional weeks of tutoring, Quinton

had made a large amount of improvements and I was able to continue the assessment with

section 3. In the reassessment, Quinton was still developing in his LS 1 section, but he was able

to identify nine new letter blend sounds than when previously assessed. In the LS 2 section,

Quinton had 100% mastery after this reassessment. Quinton was still working to master his SW

skills, however, I was pleased with the progress we were making regarding this section. We were

on track with our original academic goal to learn five new words each week. In WS section 1,
Quinton was still developing, but he was able to sound out 8 words when reassessed. The WS 2

section showed that Quinton still struggles most with spelling and visualizing words.

Part 3 of the assessment was the new section that I assessed, therefore, Quinton and I had

not worked with these concepts yet and he struggled with the level of these words. In WS

sections 3, 4, and 5, he was only able to read 4 of the words overall. This was expected because

these words involved upper level concepts such as multisyllable and compound words, as well

as, words with irregular vowel sounds. These are concepts we had not worked with together and

he was unfamiliar with them. Despite difficulty in the beginning sections of part 3 of the

reassessment, Quinton mastered all three of the tracking (T) sections of the assessment and his

reading fluency score was well above grade level. He scored 67 WCPM with the goal for 1st

grade at 40 WCPM for the middle of the year. Although he is a smooth and efficient reader,

Quinton still needed to work on his expression levels, therefore I rated his reading as a 4.

Summative Assessment Results

After reassessing Quinton for the final time, the progress Quinton made from the

beginning of the semester to the end is astounding. In LS section 1, Quinton mastered all of the

sounds from the 9 sets except for 8 sounds. He made major progress on this section of the

assessment. After the final reassessment, he mastered sets 1 and 2 of SW 1 with set 3 still

developing. In WS 1, Quinton mastered sets 1 through 6 and for WS 2 he mastered sets 1

through 4. In part three of the assessment Quinton made major progress in WS 3. After being

reassessed, he was able to identify 9 additional words compared to three words from the previous

assessment. He still struggled with WS 4 and 5, however, he was able to identify two new words

from these sections. In regard to his tracking and fluency, these results stayed consistent with the

previous assessment.
 The value added to Quinton’s learning through our tutoring sessions is most apparent in

regard to his letter identification, word skills, and sight word knowledge. These are the three

sections Quinton and I focused on throughout the semester. In the beginning of our time

together, Quinton was able to identify some of the regular letter sounds while struggling with the

irregular and blended sounds. After working with Quinton, he was able to learn 20 new sounds

that he did not know before. Not only did Quinton learn these sounds, but I witnessed him

applying them while he was reading and writing during our activities together. This shows that

he learned the sounds and then internalized them to apply throughout his reading.

Word skills was another aspect of the assessment that shows the value added through our

tutoring sessions. This was an aspect that Quinton and I were working on specifically during our

time together. On the original preassessment I conducted, Quinton could only identify four

words in WS 1. By the end of the semester, Quinton had mastered almost 7 sets out of the 9

given. The progress that Quinton made in this section accurately portrayed the growth he had

accomplished. This section had another aspect of value added because Quinton applied the vowel

sounds he learned in the LS section to the words he learned in the WS section. This is a major

step in Quinton’s learning because he not only has the knowledge of these words and letters, but

he understands how to apply them in his reading. Additionally, Quinton used the skills he had

learned while reading words with base words to master more sections in WS 3. I was extremely

impressed on the final assessment when Quinton was able to sound out 9 new words in this

section, using the skills he learned both in the classroom and in the tutoring sessions.

Value was also added to Quinton’s education in regard to his progress with sight words.

The original goal that Quinton and I established at the beginning of the semester was to learn 4

new sight words over each tutoring plan. After the first tutoring plan, Quinton had already well
surpassed this goal and we increased the number to 5 words per tutoring plan. The final

reassessment showed that Quinton was able to master two sets of sight words. Also, in the final

tutoring plan, Quinton showed more confidence in learning the sight words than he had in the

beginning. When we first began learning new sight words, Quinton would often get frustrated

because he could not sound out the words, however, during our last tutoring plan, Quinton was

more confident in reading the words automatically and he learned the words more quickly.

The goal that Quinton and I set together was for him to learn 4 new words each tutoring

plan. The goal that I set for myself and for Quinton was for him to make enough progress to

transition to tutoring plan 3. Quinton and I did achieve this goal after the first two tutoring plans

and we were able to continue to the next tutoring. This shows the progress that Quinton made

over the course of the semester and

Final Recommendation for Tutee

After working with Quinton this semester, I recommend that he is ready to continue

without tutoring. I would recommend, however, that he continue to work individually on his

spelling abilities. His skills did improve throughout this semester, but it is apparent that spelling

is the category that he has most difficulty. If he does continue tutoring, I would suggest that the

tutor focus heavily on spelling strategies. Additionally, Quinton should continue to develop his

expression in reading fluency and his ability to read multi-syllable words with both regular and

irregular vowel sounds. Quinton and I did not work on these concepts during our time together

until the last tutoring plan because he was still developing in skills and concepts that are pre-

requisites to the more difficult concepts. Therefore, we made some progress in these concepts,

but not a significant amount. He will continue to work with them in his general education
classroom that I believe will be enough support for him to succeed because he already has some

familiarity.

Two Significant Ideas I Learned in this Experience

This tutoring experience taught me the importance of planning while working with

students. Although I was aware that teaching requires a significant amount of planning, planning

for these tutoring session each week showed me the importance of being prepared. Additionally,

while I was planning, I learned how to choose specific letters, words, and activities to use with

Quinton to meet his individual goals and needs. Using his assessment results and his previous

tutoring plans, I was able to form a greater understanding of Quinton and the types of activities

he needed to learn and succeed.

Through tutoring Quinton, I was also able to build my confidence while working with

students individually and being responsible for their education. Although I have taught in the

classroom before, while tutoring I felt a new responsibility for the learning of my tutee because I

was planning and making academic decisions based on my own knowledge and judgements. I

was able to use my own knowledge of educational strategies and the SFA curriculum, my

relationship with my tutee, and the results of the assessment to create lessons on my own to use

with Quinton. This experience gave me greater confidence that I am actually equipped with the

ability and skills I need to become a successful and impactful educator on my students.

The two articles from my research readings that were most prevalent to my tutoring

experience were the effects of trauma on the classroom and students experiencing homelessness.

I was not fully aware of the state of Quinton’s home situation, however, in the middle of the

semester there was a distinct shift in his behavior related to his life at home. He was absent more

often, he was tired and less attentive, and there were several situations when he became upset
while we were working together. After discussing it with Quinton, I made a connection with

something negative in his home life to the behaviors he was exhibiting. He discussed with me

that his family was moving and that his father now lives in Pittsburg. Both of these experiences

connect to homelessness and traumatic situations because Quinton was clearly impacted by the

events he was experiencing at home that caused trauma in his life. I saw not only the effects on

his behavior, but these issues also impacted his ability to learn and thrive in the classroom. I was

able to apply what I learned through these two articles to my situation with Quinton to better

understand his situation and to empathize with him to meet his needs.