An asset-based approach activity for Lisa to grow her skills in writing as well as reading would be to have the tutor assist Lisa reading a short story about someone who plays basketball. This would reach into Lisa’s knowledge about the subject of basketball as well as help her understand the words better in context if the tutor pick a story with a more challenging vocabulary. This will make her far more confident in her reading skills because she already knows the names of things that would be frequently talked about in the story and picked from the knowledge that she already holds. After the tutor reads the story with her, they can have her write a short excerpt about either the plot or the main character(s) of the story to have her be able to practice writing about something she already have knowledge in as well as providing her with options to take her own learning in her hands. Writing a short excerpt about the plot will allow her to discuss basketball more and be able to use the words she knows in context to what she doesn’t and writing about the main character(s) would allow Lisa to be able to still use that context and herself to better understand the characters in the story and improve her reading skills. The tutor could push for more detail rather than length in general by, instead of having her write an excerpt on her own, have her answer question on the plot/character(s) so she would have to read the questions and would be able to answer them in a more condensed form rather than having an intimidating writing project. Questions such as “What position does (main character) play and what position is that useful for when playing basketball?” promotes reading comprehension as well as allowing Lisa to be able to talk in detail about something she’s interested in. It will have her be more confident in her abilities and provide lots of extra detail that will improve her detail taking abilities. 

Another way to improve her writing skills would be to opt for a similar approach using her enjoyment of movies. The tutor could have her watch a movie that she enjoys and do a similar thing to the previously stated reading assignment. The tutor could either have Lisa write a review of the movie using reasons to why she enjoyed it and the plot of the movie, or they could make a series of questions that would make it so Lisa can focus on certain aspects of the movie and write in detail about it. For this one, I would opt for the first rather than the second because it is more likely that Lisa would be better confident in her skills if she is allowed freedom to write how she wants rather than answering questions, which would have been better for the previous prompt. 

Instead of, or in addition to, these two options, the tutor could have Lisa write about a trip she would like to take–to Hawaii for example because she said she would like to go there one day. The tutor could prepare a budget option and give Lisa a list of activities and things in Hawaii that she would like to do, then prompt her to make a plan for what she wants to do while staying within the budget that the activity set. This would allow her to think about what she wants to do on her (hopeful) trip this summer, which would keep her engaged in the activity, as well as letting her do math to figure out the budget. This would be good for her reading/writing skills because she would not only need to describe what she would like to do as per the schedule/money she would like to set, but it also has her reading the options and thinking critically about them because there are limitations to what she can do in both time and money. 

Yet another way to incorporate reading and writing would be to have a hands-on activity where the tutor and Lisa bake chocolate chip cookies together. The tutor would find a chocolate chip cookie recipe and have Lisa help read out the instructions before they do the action it describes, as well as reading the measurements and everything else involved with baking. This would be good for Lisa’s reading skills because she would have to read the instructions of something she is familiar with–a recipe–but something new as well as having to read it correctly. Of course, the tutor would be on the side to help with anything Lisa needed in addition to prompting for the next instruction or measurement. This would help Lisa become evolved and excited for this activity because she both enjoys baking and everyone loves chocolate chip cookies. After this activity, you could have the option to have Lisa write a short paragraph about how she and the tutor made the chocolate chip cookies to promote the writing skill into the learning, but that is not required in order to make this activity a successful one for working on Lisa’s reading skills. 

The last activity that would be simple to manage for Lisa’s learning/improvement would be to involve her friend, Brittney. To do this, you could have Lisa do a few different things. One option would be to have Lisa write a short story of what she would do with her friend if they were able to have a sleepover (for example), which promotes her to think about doing fun things with her friend and enjoying talking about it. When people are able to write about things they like, it makes it much easier to go into detail about the activities. Another option to still include Brittney, would be to have Lisa narrate a conversation they had together from a third person objective. This would have her write about something that already happened (which could make it easier depending on what she struggles with) in addition to it being with someone that she already talks to on a day to day basis, so she could have many different prompts, It would be far more focused on Lisa’s writing compared to her reading, if the tutor decides to do these activities, but it would make Lisa able to talk about a subject that either excites her or something she’s very familiar with, which allows her to both write more and be able to write with causal language which she seems to not struggle with as much because it is like talking.