I am a reading tutor for two second graders. The first student (Student A) struggles with reading, and isn't confident about his abilities. He skips over words he doesn't understand, has trouble with compound words and words with suffixes. My second student (Student B) reads at a 4th grade level, and is very easily bored. She can read quickly, but also has a problem with skipping over words she doesn't know. Both students love to play games, and so we end up spending part of our time on flash cards and learning games.

My problem is that I have no idea how to help both of them at once. I thought about bringing in some novels from the Magic Treehouse series, by Mary Pope Osborne or the Fudge series, by Judy Blume. The only problem is that the first might not keep Student B's attention, and the second might be too hard for Student A. The plan was to read a chapter of the novel out loud together, and then move to another book or a game. I'm not sure if that is a good idea, since I worry that it might not help out Student A much, if he is struggling.

If I can't figure out what to do by next week, I might see if I can get Student B transferred into a different study group, but I'd rather not do that since many of the other tutors are overwhelmed with up to 5 students.

What do you think I should do?

How about appropriate comics/graphic novels? Not like superhero comics, but some of the more interesting, story oriented ones. Perhaps there aren't any age appropriate ones, though. I"m really not too familiar with the industry.

You could check out the series "Bone", which I know has been used as a reading tool for younger children, but, perhaps it is still too high a level for at least your weaker reader. The story can get pretty scary towards the end, but probably nothing more intense then what you see in Disney.

Maybe get student B to help you out with student A? The key is to make it seem like a fun game and emphasise that student B is helping you. Some kids really love helping out.

Otherwise, maybe a student swap rather then a transfer might work... but that could be hard on the students.

Ask student B to bring a notebook where he can write down all the difficult words he skips over. Teach him to use the pronunciation guide in a dictionary so that he can look up difficult words herself. Give him extra credit for all the difficult words that he's noted down and mastered. Praise him for being a responsible and independent reader.

Wai-

I just got another idea from a sudden flashback from when I was thirteen. If you have a corkboard or posterboard at the tutorial room, try to reserve a space to showcase student B's weekly word list. That way, he will be compelled to do a good job on his word lists because his work will be viewed by others. And can he work on a computer with graphics to build print out his weekly word list? If he can, he might be more motivated to make his word lists look cool.

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This is a great idea. If you can think of any way in which they can teach and help each other it'll be great for both of them.

The two students will have some bond between them, because they are in the same situation so there is a deeper level of understanding and belief in possibilities of progress when one tells the other "you can do this".

Teaching is also a learning process, you have to really have a solid grasp on what you're trying to teach and any knowledge their minds have absorbed has to be internally re-processed and re-organised before it's ready to be put back out when teaching. It's also a diagnostic process, if they try to teach something wrong you know they understood it wrong.

Teaching is also an act of giving, it allows them to feel useful, feel like they are doing something good, and feel confident in their own abilities.

(I'm embarrassed to say but I guess it doesn't matter ) I had learning difficulties (dyslexia) at school. My biggest problem by far was criticism that I was being lazy, that I wasn't trying hard enough, that I should do better. Even "you can do better" is strong criticism to a sensitive person who will interpret that in the most negative way possible. Over attention was another big problem, it was something I wanted to keep discrete from the other kids. So worried was I that they would see me as having a disability I used to pretend I just didn't care (being lazy and not caring is something kids respect more than trying but not being able - one doesn't want to be bullied at any cost!). Of course this lead to criticism of me being lazy (see above) and so it went round in a degrading circle.

Yes tragedy teaching is one of the best work ever. Because through teaching process , we can do some good deeds to make people literal. And as we proud of that we can make the world literal.