Day 257

T is for Tutor.  And R is for Relief. 

I’ve been super stressed lately.  Due to his poor reading skills, LilCrockett is getting pulled out of class for 30 minutes each day into a special reading group.  Each night, he has reading homework, plus any work that his teacher assigns.  I’ve also been working with him in other subjects as well as the need arises.  This requires a 1 to 1-1/2 hour commitment each night.  Picture a squirming, uncooperative, whiny kid sitting next to frustrated, inpatient mom.  It’s torture for both of us.  And it’s not that I don’t feel that he’s worth my time, but more that I don’t feel like I know how to help him. 

Enter our new tutor, who is the daughter of my friend.  Kara is fresh out of college with a teaching degree and even better, she student taught and tutored 1st graders like LilCrockett.  I am so lucky to have found her.  She is going to work with him 2 nights a week for an hour each.

Tonight was her first night and it couldn’t have come at a better time as LilCrockett came home from school today with a D grade on a test and other papers that showed he obviously needed extra help.  I got her started by explaining what we had been working on, telling her what LilCrockett’s teachers had suggested she work on, and showing her his recent papers and tests.  Then I excused myself and they got to work.  I popped in about half way through to see how they were doing and there was my little boy sitting so quietly and diligently working away with her.  I was flabbergasted.  Such a different scene than the two of us working together.  Afterwards, she told me how great he had done, how hard he had worked, and how he even had fun!  Makes my heart sing! 

And I’m happy to say that one of the neighbor girls has offered to help him a couple of times a week too.  I think that he will do really well with both of them as he will work harder and be less whiny than with me.  Between the 3 of us, I really feel like he has a chance to get caught up and stay on top of his schoolwork now.  Such a relief to this mom.  Especially since this is the first I’ve ever had to deal with this issue.  GothGirl was always on the other end of the spectrum…super smart…and school stuff always came easy to her (and it still does). 

Here are the papers that LilCrockett worked on tonight.  I wanted to get a picture of Kara and LilCrockett working together, but I didn’t want to disrupt them on their first night.  Note on the top page how LilCrockett got all of his spelling words right even though the test isn’t until Friday.  He missed 4 of those words on the pre-test just 2 days ago!

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful tutor/student relationship!