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Success For All Tutoring

Anna is a first grade African American girl who has lived in Steubenville for her whole

life. She lives with her mother and five siblings though she has mentioned that she has other

siblings that do not live at her house. Anna has a lot of energy and is almost always smiling. She

likes school and has many friends in her class; she has expressed that she does not like missing

recess or gym for tutoring but at the end of each tutoring session asks me to stay longer.

After giving Anna the pre-assessment and analyzing the results, I saw that she would

need to start in tutoring plan two. Anna had mastered hearing and saying initial sounds of a

spoken word, blending sounds that were presented orally, breaking down a word into individual

phonemes, concepts of print, and 29 out of 33 phoneme sounds. Anna was only able to read six

essential sight words and only read five “reading words” words that can be figured out by

blending the letter sounds.

During the first five tutoring sessions we worked on skills regarding phonemic

awareness, letters, word reading, spelling, and sight words. Anna needed to have these sessions

to help her achieve a good foundation in basic letter skills. I wanted to make sure that Anna

knew the name and sound of each letter, knew how to blend sounds to make a word, and spell

words by breaking them down into individual phonemes. During these sessions we practiced

sight words since students need a significant amount of exposure to these high frequency words

in order to make them rote. At the end of the five tutoring sessions, I reassessed Anna and saw

that she had mastered all letter names and sounds. Blending sounds and listening for phonemes

was no longer challenging for her and she could now easily read ten sight words. It was evident

that she had mastered the necessary foundational skills needed before moving on to more

challenging objectives. Anna improved enough to move her up to tutoring plan three.
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For the next set tutoring sessions, I helped Anna with new objectives that included letter

skills, word reading, spelling, story preparation, and reading comprehension. In these sessions I

tried to reinforce the concepts and phrases Anna was learning in her daily reading instruction.

We worked on blending sounds, reading words with endings, spelling words with endings,

reading more challenging sight words, and rereading text for understanding. The first few

sessions were very difficult for Anna but by the fifth session these objectives had become much

easier. When I reassessed Anna she was able to read 31 sight words and 25 words using

blending! She also had demonstrated mastery in set one of reading words that have base words.

Anna did significantly progress in her learning, but needed to stay in tutoring plan three for the

next set of tutoring sessions.

For the final five tutoring sessions, I had Anna work on listening for specific sounds in a

word in order to be able to spell it correctly, reading base words with the last consonant doubled,

spelling base words that had endings, understanding vocabulary and using context clues, and

reading fluently. Anna did not have any trouble with listening for specific sounds in a word in

order to be able to spell it correctly. Anna also exceled at reading base words that had the last

consonant was doubled before the ending (ex: stopped). Spelling words that could be broken

down into separate sounds gave Anna some trouble but she slowly improved over each session.

Figuring out difficult vocabulary by using context clues and pictures was not hard for Anna. I

modeled for Anna how to read fluently. Usually, when Anna would read she would have to

sound out each individual sound before saying the word because she has yet to achieve

automaticity when reading words. I would let her sound out each word and then ask her to reread

the sentence to demonstrate reading fluently. Anna did progress in reading fluently over each

session but could still use additional practice with this objective.
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Overall, Anna exceled in many categories and has made considerable progress. In the

area phonemic awareness, Anna can effortlessly name all the letters of the alphabet and their

sounds. She has met the objective for being able to blend and manipulate phonemes, a necessary

skill for reading and spelling words. Anna has also exceled at reading words that can be figured

out using blending and base words that have endings. Finally, Anna has learned a significant

number of sight words and has truly worked hard at achieving automaticity with those words.

Though Anna has improved on spelling words with endings, reading comprehension and reading

fluency, she has not yet exceled in these objectives.

Based on my final summative assessment data, I think the next steps for Anna should be

that she receives another semester of one-on-one tutoring. I believe that Anna is preforming at

grade level but should continue to receive extra assistance for another semester to help her keep

up with her daily reading instruction. I would suggest that Anna’s difficultly in reading is

developmental and comes from a lack to reinforcement when she is not in school. With a small

amount on tutoring or even some small group intervention, I truly believe that she will continue

to preform at grade level.

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Below are some of the materials I used to help Anna during our tutoring sessions and keep her

motivated and engaged.

Letter Cards

Base words with endings

Sight words

Phonics sounds