Gail and Tim hard at work in the lab
Many of the Project Read training tools and facilities led directly to Tim’s enrollment at CCSF. In addition to the specific skills Tim studied in the computer lab, from spelling to phonics to reading comprehension, Tim also learned how to work with computers in the lab. This was essential for Tim’s enrollment this spring semester. When Tim’s registration appointment day came, he went to the registrar’s office. They pointed him to the computer and told him to register for his courses. Tim’s first reaction was fear. But then he remembered that he does know how to work with a computer. He does know how to click on a program and read and follow the instructions. This gave him the confidence to log on and register. He got all the classes he wanted, a success, as any student knows. The biggest success was navigating the world of computers and computer instructions to achieve his goals.
During the past year Tim and I have worked steadily through Book 1, Patterns in Spelling. We also concentrated a lot on dictionary skills, including putting words in alphabetical order. Tim increased his speed at looking up words from slow to fast. It’s amazing to see him flip through the dictionary like a pro to look up a word. This is very important now that Tim is taking “Introduction to Public Health Education” and a Gemology course. Both courses use a lot of technical words, and we have to look them up in the dictionary to make sure we understand what we’re reading about.
A year ago, Tim and I spent about eight months in the monthly Book Club. This was a great opportunity to get into the habit of daily reading. Tim has a lot of reading to do every week for school. He told me he even reads while he walks on the treadmill!
Tim is required to write a number of two-page papers for the Public Health Education class. Tim knows what he wants to say, so we are using the Language Experience Technique that I learned in tutor training. Tim talks the paper out loud while I write it down. This serves as the first draft. It’s all Tim’s ideas and words. It helps a lot to separate out the thinking from the writing and spelling skills. Tim takes the first draft and then types it up, editing as he goes to create the assignment he turns in.
Sometimes we work the opposite way, and mimic the sentence writing work we’ve been doing for the 2-1/2 years we’ve worked together. Tim writes what he wants to say in a series of sentences. Then we review the sentences together. First we work on spelling and grammar. Then we work on putting the sentences together in an order that expresses his thoughts by putting the sentences into paragraphs.
Just about everything Tim and I have done and used in Project Read is helping us now that Tim has taken on the challenge of being a full time student. Tim missed the first day of one of his classes, but he picked up the syllabus and the assignment. The next day of class he came prepared with the homework done. He had a lot of the answers right. Other students who had been at the first class, but who had not done the homework, wanted to know HOW Tim had known how to answer the questions. Tim said, “I read the instructions. That’s how.” Way to go, Tim!
|
