Somebody Help!

Today I tutored at CLC, an after-school enrichment club for students at Longfellow. As tutors we have a list of things we need to do with our students: read their group reading book, review the Dolch word lists, practice math facts, and practice spelling words. As always, the student and I read the group reading book he had in his bag. It was a new book he'd only gotten yesterday. He told me it was a hard book and that he couldn't read it all. I told him we'd get through it together and that when we finished we could play a game. About half way through the 25 page book, the student started to get frustrated.

"Why won't you just help me?!"

"I am helping you. We're sounding out the tough words and you're reading really well." I replied, confused as to where this outburst had come from.

"I know. But why won't you just tell me the words?"

It was then I realized that as teachers we may sometimes take the easy route and just tell kids the answers to their questions instead of helping them work through things they don't know. But students need to learn how to deal with words they can't read and math problems they can't solve at first glance. It is these coping skills and attack strategies that will ultimately benefit the student in the long run.