Response to Mike P's Prompt # 6

I am responding to Mike P’s prompt 6 because he dealt with 6th grade students and tutored math; as opposed to Kindergarten and First grade reading like I dealt with. I wanted to compare and contrast the older to the younger students. He explains how there was a problem in multiplication and division in 6th grade students; this reminds me of my students that couldn’t add two simple numbers together. This could probably be a chain reaction to the future as we see in the students that Mike tutored. I that it was interesting that he mentioned factors outside of school that could affect the student’s math abilities. It could be true that if most of the student’s parents can’t speak English then they may not be able to do basic math.

He thought of a possible solution to this, and that was to encourage the students to practice this at home or seek help from a friend. I thought that this was a good idea because the more the practice outside of school, the more prepared they will be coming into class and being ready to broaden their math skills and gradually improve. Mike also mentions that most of the students don’t have the proper supplies at home to effectively complete their homework, which is a big issue and reason why they may not practice this at home. Overall, I think that Mike did a great job in mentioned key points that needed to be solved and what the students can do to benefit themselves to improve their math skills. I also liked how he mentioned it to Delpit and the communication because communication is key for these students to transfer what they need to know from their language to English so it could be taught efficiently.