Tutoring

Last Tuesday I finally decided that I should tutor my nephew because I found out that this seventh grader had the reading level of a second grader. DOH! I had figured he was lazy and bored like most 12 year olds. So, on Sunday, I picked him up and brought him to my place where we had lunch and I wanted to get him in the mood to learn.

I had him do his homework for an hour before I went over the answers with him. I had to draw upon a lot of patience as I went over his answers. Perhaps, he a bit scared of me from when he was younger and I was scarier. But, I get the impression he keeps lying to himself and others. Nevertheless, he guessed at all the answers because he really doesn't understand what's going on. The patience part: as I explained to him how sentence structures work, it totally baffled me that he didn't understand what I was saying. So I tried again, hoping that he's figure out that one plus one equals two and that two minus one equals one. All I got was a baffled look from him.

As the afternoon wore on and I passed up on knowing the football scores, I came to the following conclusions:

1. He needs glasses
2. He needs someone to speak English with him
3. He needs to stop watching Chinese videos
4. He needs to want use the noggin as opposed to obeying commands
5. He needs to have understand what he's reading and fatten his vocabulary
6. He needs to stop going to those uncaring it's-all-about-the-loot Chinese after school centers

Though stressed, I remain hopeful since he's only 12 and the learning curve, though nearly vertical, can be flattened in the next five years.

I'll be ready again this Sunday.