Gabe - TS #11

    We began working on the reading exercise from the last session. He had completed it at home, but left it there, so we decided to just go over the copy I had on my laptop. I noticed that he definitely had trouble with skills such as scanning and using context clues. There were numerous times where the answer was plainly in the text but he had difficulty finding it because it was worded a little differently. I'm not sure how else to teach him these skills other than more practice, so I think that for next time I will give him a similar reading exercise, but maybe give him some more instructions. I could try explaining these reading strategies to him explicitly before he starts reading so that he can be better prepared to answer the questions. At the end of the reading exercise, I included a free response question. His writing skills are still seriously lacking. The question clearly stated that the answer should be "a few sentences"; he wrote two unrelated sentences and the second sentence was nearly incomprehensible. 

    I've now worked with him 11 times and spoken with him for many hours and what I've noticed is that his conversation skills far surpass his reading, writing, and grammar skills. I think for the remaining sessions, I need to be more diligent in correcting his grammar, because it doesn't really seem to be getting better. We also did the listening exercise that I had planned for our previous meeting. It was fairly brief, but it did tell me some important things: Masoud can differentiate between the /f/ and /v/ sounds without issue, though his own pronunciation of these needs work, and he still struggles with the /p/ and /b/ sounds, especially at the end of words. Interestingly, he can pronounce the word-final /p/ and /b/ just fine, but he says he doesn't hear the difference himself.  

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