Shaima Aldaibil

Honors 4930
6 December 2015
Reflection on My Experience as a Tutor

As part of the Detroit Fellows Tutoring Project, I have had a good opportunity to give back
to my community. Since the beginning of the semester, I have been tutoring at Roberto Clemente
Academy. I was given five kindergarteners from Mrs. Maldanados class that need some one on
one help with reading. I had the opportunity to work with Geovanni, Victor, Paola, Christian, and
Waldo. The students were all on different academic levels; I had some students that knew some
of the alphabets and others that were clueless. For instance, Geovanni knew all of the alphabets
including their sounds, while the rest barely knew anything. With that being said, each student
required different strategies and teaching techniques in order for them to understand the material;
some strategies were effective, while others not so well; nevertheless, working with these
students helped me, as a tutor, realize surprising things about myself.
In order to make an effective difference in each students academic field, I had to try many
techniques. As mentioned earlier, my students were on different academic levels; therefore, each
one required a different technique that correlated with their personality and the way they seemed
to process the material. We always started our sessions by reading a book, which was their
favorite part. They all had creative imaginations; they always seemed to find a way to relate to
the stories. After reading a book, we would move on to read poems off the Fast Start for Early
Readers. Not many enjoyed this part of the session, mostly because it tested them on material
they havent learned yet. However, I tried my best to make the poems sound as interesting as
possible. Finally, we would cover the material from the Project Read booklet, which I believe to

be the most significant part of our session. With this booklet, we were able to focus on letters,
sounds, and words. Since not many knew their alphabets, I had to use different strategies with
each student. In Geovannis case, we worked at a faster pace and thats because he already knew
the alphabets and their sounds. He made my job a bit easier; my goal was to help him combine
sounds in order to pronounce words. With that being said, I would start off by writing out a word
on the board and sound it out for him. To show him how each sound would flow and combine I
used hand gestures. Geovanni would repeat after me and would unintentionally use the same
hand gestures. After repeating this process several times, I would allow him to write each word
on the board and have him sound out each letter until he finally gets it. I found this technique to
be very successful because the more he wrote the word the more it was engraved in his head. To
avoid putting pressure on him, I introduced about two to three words a day. After introducing a
few words, I would play a little game with him, we called it The Point Game. The objective of
the game was that I pull out a flashcard with a word on it, if he pronounces the word accurately,
he would receive a point. As soon as he would reach five points, he would get a sticker. I believe
this strategy was successful too especially because Geovanni is very competitive.
On the other, my other students started off not knowing any of the letters; therefore, I
worked with them at a slower pace. Not going to lie, working with the rest required a lot of
patience. We started off with Unit 1 which included the letters a, b, c, m, f, t, and
s. These letters were like Chinese to them, they had no clue what they were. In order to make
things easy for them, I introduced a few letters at a time and I wouldnt move on until they
mastered each letter. I tried so many different techniques with them just to engrave the letters in
their brain. I started off by showing them a letter and writing it on the board. Then, I would have
them write the letter repeatedly and saying the name and sound every time they would do so.

This strategy worked with Victor but not so well with the others. They either forget instantly
when I introduce another letter or they would get too bored. I played The Point Game with
them as well. They seemed to enjoy this game because it included competition and stickers!
Speaking of competition, they all liked to compete against each other; so I began to take
advantage of the Done envelope idea and used it as a way of motivation. Before each session, I
would show each student how thick the other envelopes looked in order to push them to do
better. This technique worked mostly with Victor and Waldo. They always liked to count the
amount of notecards in their envelopes and then they would ask me if that amount was good
enough. I constantly changed things up just to prevent them from getting bored. Another
technique I used was hunting for letters around the hallway. I would introduce a letter and then
go for a walk around the hallway to search for that certain letter. Paola, Victor, and Waldo loved
this idea, they enjoyed walking around rather than just sitting for 30 minutes. For those that
mastered the letters, I used the same techniques to teach them the words.
As a tutor, I believe I had a great impact on the five students I worked with. Starting with
Geovanni, he already knew the letters and their sounds, so my main objective was to help him
pronounce words. Due to both of our hard work and dedication, Geovanni is now able to
combine the sounds and properly pronounce the words included in Unit 1 through Unit 4.
Moreover, he is also capable of reading stories from the Project Read: Stories to Read booklet.
Helping him reach that point has never made me happier. I believe I had a big impact on Victor
as well. When I first met Victor, he was the shy little boy that didnt speak until spoken to. After
opening up to me about his personal problems and allowed me to support him, we were able to
break the wall between us. Since then, he has been more open than ever and has been very easy
to interact with. When we first started, he barely knew his alphabets. Using the strategies listed

above, I can safely say that Victor has mastered the letters and sounds included in Unit 1 and 2
and can sound out each letter to form the words in those Units. Paola and Waldo, on the other
hand, were both hard to get to. They both required A LOT of patience. It just seemed like
whatever I was doing wasnt working with them. Introducing the hunting for letters strategy
worked very well with them due to the fact that they get bored and their attention span is very
short. I came up with this strategy not very long ago, so recently they began showing
improvement and finally mastered Unit 1 letters and sounds. We are currently working on
sounding out the words. Waldo is doing pretty well, however, Paolo has been absent for the past
couple sessions; therefore, she has forgotten some of the material we have been through. Lastly, I
started working with Christian towards the end of October. Ariella, my former student, had to
transfer to a different school, therefore, I had to take Christian in order to replace her. In
comparison to all of his fellow classmates, Christian was very behind and needed this program to
help him catch up. Due to the fact that I wasnt able to work with him as long as my other
students, he wasnt able to show as much improvement. He was able to master Unit 1 letters and
sounds two sessions ago and we are currently working on sounding out words. All in all, I am
very proud of all of the students I worked with. I know for a fact that this program has had a
great impact on their learning experience.
My overall experience as a tutor was very satisfying yet very difficult. I am the type of
person that can be very impatient; working with some of these students has allowed me to
control this flaw of mine. As a matter of fact, I never thought being patient would have such
satisfying outcomes. With my patience, hard work, and dedication to help these students, I can
safely say that I have had a great impact on these students academic field. I was able to come up
with many techniques and strategies that fit each students way of learning. Through this

program, I learned that working around a students way of learning can be very difficult,
especially for a teacher that has 20 other students. Thats when a tutor comes in handy. My
experience with this tutoring program has allowed me to understand the significance of working
one on one with students. With this program, I was given the opportunity to give back to my
community by helping students succeed academically. I was able to help them understand the
importance of reading and most importantly the significance of education. Engraving the idea of
education and success in their minds has been the best thing I have done as a tutor. With that
being said, I have never been so proud of myself; feeling this way has allowed me to become
more open to giving back to my community.