Tutoring Amauro

I did my project at Arturo Salazar Elementary School in Dallas, Tx. The school is 95% Hispanic in a low socioeconomic area. My particular assignment was Amauro, a fourth grade bilingual student with learning disabilities. When I met Amauro he seemed like any other fourth grade student. Upon conversing with him I realized that a lot was going on in this child’s life. As I talked to my mom, his teacher, I realized that aside from his living situation he was also very behind in his learning. At 8 years old, Amauro couldn’t write the letters. I mean he can write them, but for the most part its illegible. I can’t even lie, its bad. I couldn’t even read it and my writing sucks. I didn’t expect this, I mean my mom teaches fourth graders, they’re supposed to know how to read, how to write. The first day with Amauro we spent 3 hours writing letters, like you do in like kindergarten with the sheets of paper with the really big lines and the dotted line in the middle. The final hour we spent reviewing words for his geometry lesson. It was interesting to see because he knew how to respond verbally to my demands but when he had to write it down he would freeze. We reviewed how to write down words like obtuse, angle, perpendicular, because he needed to know these words to pass his math test the next week. He knew the words, and he knew what they meant, he just couldn’t write them down on paper. I honestly thought the boy was crazy. For snack, he brought a bag of chips, a coke, and a jar of cherries. If that’s not weird I don’t know what is.