Dumbed-Down Books

I have a love/hate relationship with those versions of classic novels that are simplified for little kids. On the one hand, it's great for ESL students to be able to enjoy a classic that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. On the other hand, all the things that made the classic so likable in the first place are taken out - the beautiful writing style, the descriptions, the complexity.

Yuki has to read a book and write a book report for her Language Arts class. There is a list of books the students can choose from, so she doesn't have unlimited freedom. Her ESL teacher gave her a dumbed-down version of Little Women, and we read some of it together. I was less than impressed, but c'est la vie. The original version is practically a tome.

New Book

Last week I mentioned a book I had Yuki read a bit. There were only ten minutes left in our session because she had some homework that took up most of our time. I shouldn't have had her start a book in ten minutes - it didn't give her enough feel for it and as a result it wasn't much fun. I also may have underestimated the English level of the book.

This week I tried a new book. It's a book with gorgeous pictures called Sugar Cane, based on the story of Rapunzel. Yuki had some math homework, but she had a good grasp of the topic and finished it quickly, leaving us with about 45 minutes to read. She got through half of the book. It was very enjoyable because we managed to get past the introduction and exposition to the heart of the story. She seemed to like the book, too. I hope next week we'll have time to finish it.

The Perfect Book? Or Not?

I thought I had found the perfect book for Yuki's level: here.The English is simple, the chapters are short, there are lots of pictures, and, most importantly, it's interesting. It's a children's book, but I enjoyed it, so I figured a 7th-grader would as well.

I had her read chapter one today, but I don't think she liked it. I may have overestimated the level. It seems easy to me, but I think Yuki had problems understanding it. Whoops. Part of the problem was that we only had ten minutes left after we finished her homework, so I didn't have time to stop and explain things and ask her questions. I'm going to give the book one more try next week, and if it still doesn't work, I'll try another one.

Story Time

Things have been interesting this week, as I've become more focused on having the kids read rather than work in their textbooks/workbooks. As I mentioned before, Yosuke was reading Esio Trot, although we still haven't been able to finish it. He had a lot of homework this week that took up our free time. Now that his English class has started a new book (A Raisin in the Sun), it appears that, unfortunately, we won't be able to finish it anytime soon. I'll set it aside for later.

Yuki has an English workbook that we've been using. It was recommended by the tutor she had before me, and it's quite good. However, to break up the monotony, today when I met with her I had her read some passages from a nonfiction book about Martin Luther King Jr Day. It was a book for young children, so the print was big and the sentences were easy to understand. I think she was able to follow it alright. I would have her read a passage, and we would stop and talk about each one, and I would ask questions to see if she understood.

I'm also trying to get Miki to grapple with her first short-story (it's actually one in her English textbook, not one I picked out). I hope she'll try hard, because I know it'll be rewarding for her.

Pictures

I was disappointed that Yosuke and I didn't get to read any more in Esio Trot today. He had a lot of homework, so we spent the whole two hours just doing that.

One thing about Esio Trot that I both love and hate is the illustrations. The short story has illustrations on each page that clearly show what is happening. That's great for ESL students; seeing what they just read in picture form reinforces the meaning. But I also worry that, well, maybe they are too many pictures. You can practically tell the story from just looking at the illustrations, so I worry that Yosuke might not be learning as much as he could. Hopefully he's not relying on just the pictures.

In any case, it's fun to read something as quirky as Esio Trot. Tomorrow I'll stop by the public library again and see what else I can come up with.

I'm Back

I apologize for the lack of updates. I'm trying to decide on a good posting schedule: either every other day or Monday/Wednesday/Friday. I'm leaning toward the latter; we'll see how it goes.

Yesterday was a great week for tutoring. I had a great session with Yosuke, and Miki made some progress (I was so thrilled!). Yosuke and I had finished his school assignments and still had an hour left to go. I had been at the public library earlier that day looking at children's books, so I had a plan for our free time. (Usually we work on his grammar workbook or a practice test or something, but I think he's at the point where he can have some fun while he learns.) I let him choose between Roald Dahl's Matilda, a novel, or Esio Trot, a short story. He chose Esio Trot and we got through half of it.

It turned out to be a great story to use for learning English. There are lots of pictures and the sentence structures are fairly easy. And it's interesting, or at least more so than stories written for ESL students. I can't wait to finish it when we have free time again. After that, I might have him read something longer and more involved.