As I was settling in with my regular student (who I wrote about in last week's post) and we were discussing the areas she wanted to work on that day, an unfamiliar person walked through the door and sat down beside me. I said "hello" cheerfully, but I was a little bit confused. Shortly after, my adviser walked in and told me that I would be tutoring both students that day because they were on roughly on the same level of pre-GED work.
So this was new territory. As I said before, one-on-one tutoring is easy for me. I'm comfortable in that situation because I can devote all of my energy into helping just that person. I can tailor my methods and my tutoring personality to what appeals to that student, to what is most effective for her. And honestly speaking, I've been pretty successful in that atmosphere; so when asked to change this dynamic by including another person, I was a bit uneasy.
The session started out rockier than I had hoped. The new student wasn't totally receptive to the way I presented the information. For example, with my original student, we would take turns reading the questions and the answers so I could hear when she was confused about a word. She stumbled on the word "census" in a graph question, and although it wasn't necessary to the math portion of the GED that she understood it, I realized that the word "census" may be important in the social studies section so I explained what it is, how often it is sent to households, and its purpose. The new student gave me a sideways glance and kind of scoffed at me when I asked her to read a question aloud. My first student was eager to read, but the new student wasn't. I sighed, assuming this would be an uphill battle.
But I tried to make it better and make the new student comfortable. I got the impression she didn't really want to be there. She was dropped off and picked up by her parents, so it wasn't as though she was attending the session on her own. There was some coercion involved, clearly. Eventually, as she became used to the way I tutored the other girl, she saw I wasn't trying to embarrass her by having her read aloud. She noticed it was just the way that I ran the session so I could improve their reading through practice and individual help.
As it turns out, she is a pretty fast reader, much faster than my first student. And with this information, I began worrying about something else-- would she be too bored by this session? I could recall sitting in classrooms where I was ahead of everyone else, so I became withdrawn and scoffed at the things we were asked to do. Those classes didn't challenge me, and so I felt they were a waste of my time. Perhaps this new student was feeling the same way I do in those situations.
After that session, I talked to Marie (my adviser) about that observation. She pointed out to me that yes, the new student could read better as far as speed and accuracy goes, but could she comprehend what it was she read? I thought back to the session-- while my older student struggled with the actual words, when it came to answering questions, she actually was more aware of what the question was asking. The new student often had to return to the question and re-read it in its entirety. While there is nothing wrong with a re-read, it would often be immediately after she had read it, and I did get the sense that her comprehension of the text was lower, even though she sounded like an excellent reader.
"I thought it would be helpful to pair these two students together," Marie told me, "because they have skills in separate areas-- [the older student] isn't as good a reader, but she can comprehend better than [the newer student]. They could learn from each other."
Of course. When I first thought about group tutoring, the concept of having the students teach one another is one that did not cross my mind. I assumed I would have to split myself between the two individuals and constantly be going back and forth to explain things. The truth of the matter is, I don't need to be so hard on myself-- they can help each other.
Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses, and the fact that these two students have different strengths is actually a benefit to small group tutoring. This way, it is not just me imparting information or helping them through the problem. Often, I sit back and let them talk through their ideas to come to a conclusion. Most of the time, they figure out the answers together. I would have been oblivious to this if that new student hadn't come in and given me a tutoring challenge.
I usually tutor both of them throughout the week and the newer student is much more receptive to me now. In fact, she showed me a couple of the skills she has-- she is an excellent artist and even showed me how to make an origami box out of a few sheets of paper. And what's even better, both of my students are comfortable with me and with one another, and I've seen their reading skills improve over the past couple of weeks. What was once intimidating to me is now commonplace; small group tutoring pushed me to enhance my tutoring abilities to accommodate new students and use the resources I have. Sometimes those resources just happen to be other students.
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