Today I observed a year 3 session where the tutor and student worked both English and math together. They worked on multiplication and division homework and spelling, creativity and storytelling together. The student’s spelling and brainstorming/creative skills were worked on when the tutor placed a suffix on the board. The student and tutor then worked together to brainstorm different words with the suffix that was written on the board, like ‘gladly’ and ‘sadly’ for the suffix ‘-ly’. On top of brainstorming these words, the tutor checked that the student knew all the definitions of the words and could use them in sentences. If the student was stuck on thinking of words with the suffix, the tutor would give hints and examples of the word usage to help the student. The tutor also offered praise when pointing out how many words they brainstormed together, crediting the student and motivating her as well. Spelling was built upon more by making a Kahoot of the words from the suffix brainstorm, which allowed the student to pick the correct answer with the correct spelling, further consolidating the student’s spelling in a fun way. Storytelling and creativity was also practiced in the session when the student was allowed to draw different pictures describing their story.

They also worked on mixed worded multiplication and division questions together. The tutor described different questions to allow the student further understanding such as ’16 divided by 2′ to ’16 split into 2 groups’ and ‘2 multiplied by 3’ to ‘2 groups of 3’. To further help the student with division, the tutor also utilised real objects and allowed the student to split the objects into the required groups needed for the question. This helped the student visualise what division and multiplication was, allowing the student to understand the concepts better. The tutor also motivated the student towards finishing the work by encouraging a reward of playing a game together. All these techniques used in the session allowed the student to consolidate their knowledge in both english and maths while making the lesson fun for the student.

Cynthia Lam