Personal Narrative: Peer-Tutoring

At a young age I discovered a passion for helping others and I have continued to be passionate about serving my community since then. At the age of eight years old I began the first year of what would soon be my ten year membership of 4-H. Through that program and my church’s youth group I truly began to understand what selfless service was all about. I first began helping others by walking dogs at the local shelter and helping my 4-H club clean the sides of the highways. I later was able to experience several mission trips that opened my eyes to the larger aspect of service. My love for helping people continued to grow as I got older and I continued to find ways to make a difference. One of my favorite experiences was getting to help cook and serve a meal at a homeless

Over the course of high school, I have engaged in my community in various ways. For one, I have donated my time volunteering for health-related organizations that promote good causes, such as the “Heart Walk” for the American Heart Association and the Alzheimer's Walk. Over the summer of 2017, I assisted nurses in maternal fetal medicine with clerical work through the VolunTeen program

For the past number of years, I have taken part in volunteer activities on my own, and as a member of the National Honor Society. Multiple times through the past four years, I participated in children’s holiday parties at my church. My main tasks were assembling displays and games, and assisting children who wanted to play one. I have also fundraised for many charities concerning life-threatening illnesses such as cystic fibrosis, cancer, and diabetes. During my freshman year, I completed nearly 25 hours of community service at Julia Boyer Reinstein Library. Besides restocking library materials and cleaning up around the building, I also assisted many people who were looking for certain items or had general questions. People from all different demographics and age groups visited the library and had an abundant amount of needs that I helped fill. Later this

To begin, this experience was amazing. I learned so much about children’s literacy, and I even saw growth in the 4 weeks I worked with my student, which also made this experience rewarding. I believe this tutoring experience helped me as a future teacher, but also helped the student I was tutoring. At the beginning of the program the student struggles greatly with fluency, all the aspects of it. The student stumbled over words, read words that were not there, had trouble “thinking out” words, and read with no prosody. The first week was spent getting to know the child and what troubles the child faced when reading. Once the second week came around we worked on a phonics review of beginning and ending blends. The student seemed to know the beginning blends but struggled with the ending blends so we spent

43. I stared at it. The red ink. The marks all over every minute detail of my paper. I glanced over to my left. 96. I snuck a peek to my right. 87. I discreetly spun around to three others behind me. 91. 80. 84. They were always goofing off and making smart remarks, how could theirs possibly be higher than mine? She gazed smugly around the room. “That was one of my easier tests and the results show it,” she proudly proclaimed, “the majority of you did an excellent job. This really is a smart bunch. Those of you that didn’t do so well should’ve gone to tutoring.” I did go to tutoring. In fact, I had gone to every tutoring session that week and the week before at my mom’s request.

My tutoring experience is mostly with 7th-12th grade English Literature and Language skills. I have helped students review and prepare for quizzes and tests in multiple choice and short answer format. I have also assisted students with outlining essays and research papers. I also proof read rough drafts and offer suggestions on grammar and rubric completion.

During my freshmen year I wasn’t very active in my community. I had a lot of spare time, but never participated in any events. During the end of freshman year, I really wanted to do something to give back to my community. I would see my little brother struggle with his homework and realized that many children at school might be struggling too. I decided to volunteer at my old elementary school, Lincoln Elementary School. I volunteered with a program named Engage 360. I went during my freshmen summer and spent 4 hours a day with the children. I was a teacher aid. I would help my assigned teacher with anything she needed. Whether it was with supplies, taking care of a few students, or helping the students with anything. That summer each individual

This week was a short week again for me. Monday was a holiday and Wednesday I went to a training. The training was about individualized education program (IEP) procedures. It was really helpful because I am usually at those meeting at the school, so it was good that know I have more information about it. I went back to my school site on Friday. I had an agenda prepared to see the students I thought needed me the most on friday. However, I ended up talking to different kids. I was excited because one of my students was doing amazing and was using some of the strategies that we talked about to recognize the triggers and calm down before having an episode. However, when I went back on Friday, I read an email that that student was having a bad

Today was a great day at tutoring because Will’s mother told me his Language Arts teacher said Will is making progress in school and the tutoring sessions are helping. Will has made terrific progress this semester with fluency. He is reading more words per minute with less errors. Will read 88 words with three errors on the first passage and 113 words with zero errors on the fourth (last) read. His errors went down by one each time he read a passage. I made sure to give Will specific praise each time he read a passage and I told him how much his clarity has improved since his first day of tutoring. This has been an amazing experience for me and I have loved tutoring Will. Watching him improve over the past few months has been exciting. Will

I’ve only been able to teach a handful of lessons in my pre-service, but the two core teaching strategies that I have used the most are whole group discussion and student led learning. While teacher led instruction is very important, I find that lessons stick with students better when their voices are being heard and they’re personally delving into the content. I really like when students look at primary materials, establish their own opinions, and then share their thoughts and processes with the rest of the class. This allows students to gain different perspectives and really think through the topic at hand. These strategies work on students’ listening and critical thinking skills which are just as important outside of the classroom as they

I had been assigned to visit a drop-in center in downtown Pittsburgh, where I would make and eat lunch with those experiencing homelessness. I spent hours playing dominoes, doing word searches and simply laughing with complete strangers very different from me, yet also very similar. After leaving the shelter, I reflected on the short-term friends and long-term memories I had made, and became more aware of a passion of mine: helping others. Whether it was serving a meal, giving a gift, or simply offering a sincere smile, I wanted to spend the rest of my life striving to be a positive influence in others’ lives by helping them in even the smallest of

It was a cold and dark Thursday afternoon. The sun was behind the clouds, but my spirits were bright and full of excitement. The room was crowded with third grade students eagerly awaiting their release. I stared at the clock, never moving my eyes from the hands. As the hand made its way to 2:45, I knew it was time to change for the talent show.

When I finally met a tutor I could immediately tell she was trying to rush me out the door. She was trying to get through as many people as if she was in an assembly line. I told her I just needed her to proofread my three page paper. She then loudly sighed and made it bluntly clear that she wasn’t going to read the whole thing. She continued to say that I should only point out specific examples that I thought were errors so she can get through tutoring faster. I responded that I did not know where I had errors that’s why I came to see a tutor in the first place. I could tell she didn’t like me talking back to her, and this made matters even more awkward and frustrating. She was impatient and ignored my comment and hurried me to find errors.

I practice these skills everywhere I go. I have to be respectful everyone because in order to receive respect you must give respect. A positive trait I practice everyday is caring because I babysit my little sister every afternoon. Therefore,I can't be selfish and just think about my self I have to watch over her and make sure she is okay. Peacefulness I think is a natural trait that I have because I don't like to argue. I normally try to let everything pass and move on with life. In a community as big as Oakland everyone has to learn about citizenship. I learned about citizenship with school. It has to do with knowing how to co-operate with others in order to get a job done right and well. Empathy I practice with my parents because I help

“I think I will go as well,” Danny says in his quiet and peaceful way. “I need to meditate.”