Do I plan too much?

After every class, I always felt like I didn't teach enough. And that was because we never finished all the activities that I planned. For my second class, I planned to do some family tree and numbers. However, the second class got canceled, so I had more time to think about, how to help my student to read some alphabet. I borrowed some books from my teacher, and copied one chapter--it was only ten pages with simple sentences such as "Pat has a hat" or "Tom hops the rock". The first chapter was focusing on /a/, /o/, and /i/, and it looked very simple. I thought, once she can read one or two sentences, she can pick up the letters and start reading it.

So I put this one chapter before all the family trees and number activities because I thought once she knows how to read, she might be really excited to read all the family trees and numbers!

However, the class went way different than I thought it would be:

First of all, even though I read the sentences and let her repeat the sentences, if the sentence has more than three words, she forgets how to read (or how to mimic the sound) the last one or two words. It seems like, she can't connect the sound of the words and the spelling at all.

Second of all, she has some very strong connection between the alphabet /t/ and the sound /k/ (or some sort of velar sound).

Third of all, she just can't remember (not that she is not smart, but I just think reapetition isn't her strong field).

The first two pages took almost 40 minutes because she started talking about the "hat" she had at her work, and then she talked about "cat" (oh yes, we were learning /a/ sound).

Then, she forgets how to read "Pat." Same thing happened to "Tom." She kept read "Tom" as some sort of /kam/, even after I read it for her several times. It was hard for me to disconnect the sound and alphabet she already made with this method.

At the end, reading four pages of this chapter took one and a half hour. All I could do was giving her homework; write down alphabet and review those four pages.

I still have these plans that I would probably never get to do.

Now I'm going to use Language Experience Approach (LEA). The main activity would be doing "steps." For example, I'll ask her if she knows how to make an orange juice (now I think about it, I think she'll just buy orange juice rather than make it... so maybe I can ask her how to make rice or something).

I just hope that with this methods, I can plan just enough, and my student gets interested in these new activities.