June 23rd, 2017

Dear Luis and Maria,

Thank you for the opportunity to work with Santiago this summer during our brief
tutoring sessions. I enjoyed working with him again, and I recognize so many strengths in
his literacy development. This summer is a perfect time to continue his growth in reading
and writing! I will summarize the strengths I noticed and ways you can encourage him to
continue his great progress this summer.

During our time together, I noticed that Santiago is motivated to do well (I saw
this in kindergarten too), which will help him in all subjects and grades in school. Also,
his effort and enthusiasm made our work a delight. When Santiago reads level A or B
books, he will likely read with comfort, but might benefit from some assistance because
this is at his instructional level. Most books at the PrePrimer level, level D/E books, will
be too frustrating for him to read right now. However, please encourage him to read any
book he chooses as children can always read books we deem “too difficult” when they
are motivated by their choices. For kids his age, reading anything is better than nothing
whether it is easy or difficult.

When Santiago first began in tutoring, he had a difficult time with adding more to
his story during writing. Throughout our time together, we wrote every day and I found
that he was more likely to generate a story when I asked him to think about a special
person. He wrote great pieces about his trip to California and him and his brother playing
video games. He enjoys writing and the trick is to allow for some choice in writing topic.
He was interested and motivated to write about content that he cared about. The more
writing he can do, the better he will become. Please encourage him to write for
enjoyment.

Finally, one of our favorite activities each day was reading aloud. He was able to
relax and enjoy a story that I read to him. You might ask him what he thinks the story
might be about and then stop once or twice in the book and discuss whether or not what
he thought was going to happen actually did! The great thing about read aloud is that you
can choose books that are more difficult than Santiago can read alone and still expose
him to rich content and vocabulary.

Along with this letter is a more detailed Progress Report that includes specific
informal literacy assessment results which I summarized above. In addition, you’ll find
some of the great work Santiago completed with me during our time together. I was so
pleased to work with Santiago again this summer. Thank you for your time and
commitment to his success!

Sincerely,

Jayme Vetz