Erick Martinez

Celia Brewer Sinclair

LBST-2103-338
04-06-17

Visitation Paper

What does an organization that dedicates its time to help individuals in

their pursuit for a good life? I believe that these types of associations
attempt to in their best of capabilities jn directing one to a positive direction.
Their goal isnt to focus upon individual factors for this idea of a good life,
but to see a person a whole as a better person also. People come from many
different backgrounds and events oneself wouldnt understand how their life
is being affect unless they were in their same shoes. At the University of
North Carolina at Charlotte I was given the opportunity recently to be a tutor
for this after school program, at a YWCA, where I help students in elementary
school in literature and mathematics. This was my first time approaching a
program like this, but as a new student at this university I have encourage
myself to take new opportunities that I would encounter, and even though I
had felt as if I was in an uncomfortable position. As I have grown older I have
at times taken into consideration in pursuing a career as a teacher for
children in grade school, and therefore it was an opportunity I was excited to
complete.
The process to become a tutor for this program has a couple of pre-
requisites that I was able to complete in a fair manner. Although because of
my schedule I was given this location in the YWCA located in the street of
Sugar Creek near UNCC. At the arrival of my first day I had already
completed my training for the job so I had a slight understanding of how I
would approach the students. I was directed into the facility to the class that
I was being asked to help and came to meet the instructor that I would be
helping, Mr. Travis.
We had communicated previously stating who we were and some
background history of each other. He stated that he was a recent graduate
from North Carolina A&T and that he had been at an instructor at this
program for two years now. I had told him that I had recently transferred to
the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and at the moment I am
attempting to complete the computer engineering program. I did think it
would be a bit of a challenge as a engineering student to take on this job,
because to my understanding a majority of the people in this field are usually
communication majors or people wanting to become teachers in the future.
After my introduction to the class I was able to meet my first student
named Kenji. Travis had initially told me before I began to interact with him
of his history. Stating that Kanjis mother had left his family at a young age
and that his father is taking care for him and his five other siblings. To my
understanding his father did not have the time to give each of the children
individual attention as he would have hoped to. Kenji is currently a child in
the fourth grade, but he was currently reading at a second-grade reading
level. I initially approached him in a approach I seemed to be appropriate, by
 Erick Martinez
Celia Brewer Sinclair
LBST-2103-338
04-06-17

giving him a simple activity to let each of us find out some simple things of
one and other. After we were able to know a couple things about each of us I
began to help him with is reading. In the few minutes that I was able to help
him I was able to identify simple things I could realize was causing him
problems with his reading. The child could not keep his concentration for a
long period of time and getting distracted with everything around him. I was
able to help him stay on his topic and complete his reading for his day and
after that we were able to work on his homework for the remainder of the
day. Kenji just needs some to give him attention at times or even just to
dictate him into doing his work.
As a child I could see myself as Kenji in a way also. Whenever I
attended elementary school I was assigned to these school programs for
reading. At times I was a bit embarrassed because a teacher would come
pick me up during our reading time and take me to a room apart from
everyone else to work on my literature. As a child who learned Spanish
before learning English I had a difficulty initially growing up with the
language. Although with this program I gained so much experience and I
took it as a very significant step into my education. After going to these
programs, I ended up loving to read in my free time. At one point in
elementary school I ended up receiving awards for our English classes. I
hope in a way I can help this students at this YWCA program into loving
reading in a similar way I was able to.
 Erick Martinez
Celia Brewer Sinclair
LBST-2103-338
04-06-17

WORD COUNT 842