Charlene TS# 5 Child

I met today as planned with Nayun and her mother at the Northeast Branch of the Leon County Library. We had planned to meet on Monday, but the library was closed. Nayun had worked very hard on the last lesson and I wanted to reward her for her hard work. Therefore, today I had brought an art project that I thought would interest her, challenge her, and provide her with another way to develop her fine motor coordination in her hands. This is all aimed towards helping her to have a more legible handwriting.

Nayun and I reviewed the cursive letters that she had written during the lesson last week. She is still able to write these and remembers how to form them without prompting. Ahead of time, I had taken the letters for Nayun's first and last name and written them down the left-hand margin of the page. I asked her to finish out the page by writing each letter all the way o'clock cross to the right side of the page. She did this and was careful about her letter formation. I did have to remind her to slow down. Over the course of this lesson, she admitted to me that her friends often have races in school to see who can finish writing their lessons first. From this, I deduce that Nayun knows perfectly well how to write legibly, she is just more motivated to be the first one to finish in her class.

I noticed that Nayun did have some trouble forming the lowercase y. I demonstrated this for her several times, and had her write the letter with me as I was showing her how to make the letter. She did the best she could, but she continued to make a very small tail on the left her y. Although not perfect, the letter was more than passable, so I decided it was not worth spending more time today on trying to make a perfect letter.

I asked Nayun if she would try writing her name but not connecting the cursive letters. She did so and did a very nice job. I then asked her, after showing her, if she would try to write her name connecting the letters. She was successful on her first attempt. I asked if she had written her name using cursive letters before. She said that she had not. (Hooray for D'neilian script! I guess it does work.)

I then brought out the potholder weaving project that had brought with me. Nayun actually got very excited when she saw this. We open the project together and I explained to her. I demonstrated how to put the loops on the frame. She finished putting the loops on the frame. I then demonstrated how to weave the loops through the existing loops. This was harder. She stuck with it even though I had to help her breathe weave the beginning. After that she appeared to be "hooked," and worked with great concentration until the project was almost half finished. This was hard, but she persevered. At this point we had run out of time. Therefore I got Nayun's mother and Nayun showed her project. Her mother was very proud of her and told her so. I gave the project to Nayun and her mother to take home, in case Nayun wanted to finish the other half on her own. I praised her for her hard work and her lovely weaving.

I spoke with Nayun's mother about whether she wanted to continue the tutoring sessions since the family will be leaving for Korea soon, and we have not finished the usual eight sessions. She said that she and her husband wanted to more sessions. I am willing to continue with Nayun, but will check with Prof. Kim to make sure that she does not want to assign Nayun to another tutor for the last two sessions.