Reading With Yoni

Yoni Thomas is a high energy, but very well behaved 11 year old boy who lives in the village of Bethany. His mother, Ramona, is the village health worker and is well loved by all. His father, Floyd, is a logger by profession and also play the keyboard at church each Sabbath. Yoni has a highly accomplished older brother and a bright little sister. Yoni is caught in the middle in every way, especially when it comes to his reading. Why am I writing about this random child? Because he has become my little student two days a week.

I got to know Yoni when Ramona came to Melissa one day pleading for help. She explained that Yoni was having difficulties with his reading and she was wondering if Melissa knew anyone who could tutor him. I was the first person who jumped to her mind since she knows I get along quite well with kids. She asked me if I would be interested and though I have had absolutely no experience teaching reading I accepted the challenge. When Melissa relayed the request to me she made it sound like poor little Yoni basically couldn't read. I was a bit dumbfounded by this and really didn't know how to start him out. But I decided to go and see for myself what level he was at.

I was pleasantly surprised when, during our first session together, I realized that Yoni can read quite well. He is definitely a bit behind where he should be for his age, but my fears of what level he might be at were quickly dissipated as he fairly breezed through a few short stories for me. His biggest challenge is vocabulary. There are several words he can't read because he doesn't know the word in the first place. He also has trouble getting through some of the longer words, but who doesn't! I write down all the words he has trouble with and really drill him at the beginning and end of each session.

Though progress has been slow, I can definitely tell he's picking up and understanding the new words. His parents seem very pleased with our time together, so I guess I'm making a bit of an impact. At any rate I am getting a bit more exercise than normal during the 2 mile walk to his house, plus I thoroughly enjoying being read to and hearing all kinds of fun and interesting Caribbean stories!