Week 5 Reading

Since I have only been a substitute teacher, and that was ages ago, the only experience that I have with working with a struggling reader has been tutoring Liv.  I only started working with her around the beginning of this course, so we are still getting to know each other and trying to find the right books for her.  I can say that I have had trouble finding books that are written on her level that are of high interest.  She is reading on about a second grade level but should be in fourth grade, so most books don't hold her interest.  I took her to the local library to check out some books that we selected together.  She wasn't interested in the picture books that I selected but wanted to read the chapter books that the rest of her friends were reading.  We ended up compromising and I checked out four picture books that I thought she would like and I let her select one chapter book.  When we started reading the books, she chose to try the chapter book first.  She only made it through two pages before she became so frustrated that she cried.  I told her that we would have to work up to chapter books once we figured out which strategies would help her the best.  Since then, she has made some progress but is still not quite ready to read chapter books.  I know it is extremely frustrating for her, but I keep telling her that we will get there.