I got up a 6 am with some difficulty after two days of sleeping in. I hadn't been going to Bikram because I didn't want to leave Elsa alone in an unfamiliar house. I stayed at Judy's all day on the 6th through the evening of the 7th because our house was being tented and fumigated. Now, I Elsa was back in our house, and I was free to go.
I still did the class lying down. Certain positions still trigger that back problem. I am learning so much about my alignment using the floor as a prop. After class, Heather, the teacher, was doing the Charleston break, where you move your bent knees back and forth together and then apart while doing something with the arms. Heather said it was the Charleston. I showed them what the real Charleston was. I had to hang on to demonstrate it, but I am pleased to say I can still do it. They recognized it as something from a children's TV show from their youth. Whatever's old is new again.
After class, I stopped off at Target to pick up some necessities, 6 Hersey's Milk Chocolate bars with almonds. When I got home, I worked on Chapter 2 of the book and did some work on cleaning and reassembling my refrigerator. Then I went to school.
Mrs. D. came up to me and said, "There's been a miracle!" The two boys from her class that I was working with have done a 180o; they were reading a chapter book together and suddenly love reading. Great! I wasn't in the best mood. This tenting event has been stressful, and my home is still in massive disorder, and I had a conflict with someone. I'm generally more fragile, but I find I can recover.
I complimented the two boys on their great reading. I worked with them on spelling rather than reading. The lesson's pattern was five different spellings of the [e-r] sound: ir, er, ur, ear, and or. How's that for confusing the issue. I made sure they understood that most of the spelling list words had the [er] sound. Then I showed them the trick of seeing a pattern in the order of the spelling words. I checked with the teacher to make sure that she would keep the words in the same order and showed them the pattern. 1-4 were ir, 5-8 were er, 9-11 were ur, 12-13 were ear, and 14-15 were or. B. caught on very quickly, but N. had trouble paying attention, no less getting the pattern. Once it was clear that B. had the pattern, I dictated the words to them. The difference between the two boys became painfully clear. B.'s spelling at least resembled the word. N's --?????. I sent B. back to the room and work with N. on his own.
I asked him if he had listened to the audio file of the phonemic analysis. He said he had a sour face. I asked him if he loved or hated the audio file. He was a little reluctant to tell me. I gave him a 1-10 vertical line. He said the on a rate of 1-10, he hated it on a level of a 7. Ah, then I knew what to do. I do phonemic analysis, drawing out the sounds as long as I can. This trick has worked consistently – well, so far. It worked with N., too. As I stretched out the sounds as I wrote the transcribed text on a piece of paper, he couldn't take his eyes off of me. This is a child who generally avoids eye contact and paying attention. No wonder. He can't understand most of what people have to say. This is going to make a big difference in this child's life. I don't know what I said, but I asked him if he was hopeful that we could fix the problem now. He said yes. I don't know if we can make it perfect, but we can make it better.
I then worked with R. She was able to read the first story we had worked on. There were a few words she had to figure out, but she recalled most of them. There seems to be some improvement in her memory. She is a hard working child of great spirit. If we crack this problem, she will be an excellent student.
Then I went to work with the students in Mrs. B.'s class. I started naming the letters in the text in sequence. He was reversing letters all over the place. This is the first time I had seen the problem be that bad.
When I came home, I read a little from the Master and His Emissary. Love this book! Then I napped. When I got up, I continued working on the refrigerator. I'm not in a particular hurry. I washed several shelves and drawers and set them out to dry on the lanai. I also took all the food stuffs out of the bags. Well, we're moving along – slowly.
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