I went to bed early and was awake at 4:30, struggling to fall asleep again. I got up and 5:30 and went out for my walk with Elsa. My left leg has been bothering me. When I get up from sitting or lying on my back, there is pinching in the hip area. It goes away after taking a few steps, and it doesn't even show up if I have been lying on my side. Elsa wasn't up for the whole walk.
It was uncomfortably cold this morning. I wondered if it was the weather or if I was getting sick. I ran into one of my fellow morning walkers; she confirmed it was the weather. It was cold enough that I stopped off at the house to put on a second sweatshirt. This made for excellent weeding weather. I did more weeding in the yard area outside my bedroom door. After I finished that, I meditated for half an hour. I must do more of this. It helps me feel better.
I had a 10:30 Zoom tutoring appointment. I was very frustrated with D. during the last session. Part of it was that he was working on a tablet, and I had the hard copy of the book; it was hard to help him find his place. I asked him to find the other books Mrs. B. had given him, which were on a lower reading level, but I had hard copies of them.
He read more words accurately today in the easier book, but he still made mistakes.
D. is making slow progress in applying what I do teach him to do. He doesn't apply the decoding strategies I have taught him. I have to remind him each time. While he self-corrects more than he used to, he still slides over mistakes rendering the sentence nonsense.
I decided I was going to try a different strategy. I was going to reduce the cueing when D. made a mistake. To begin with, I was going to use a sound to signal if he made an error. I was going to use my voice only to praise him. I had bought a dog clicker. It wound up not being loud enough for him to hear as he read. Instead, I banged on the side of my cup with a spoon when he made an error. That worked better, but he still sometimes ignored the signal. It makes me think, does he ignore his internal signal when he makes an error? Well, if that's what's going on, he's doing it less.
After I finished with him, it was off to the DMV to get the title for Mike's car put in my name to sign it over to Josh. The line wasn't bad. Today I had to go inside the office. Even that wait wasn't bad. The whole process was easy.
I brought a container of Clorox wipes with me to clean the counters at the DMV. We have had an increase in virus cases on the Big Island. We have jumped from zero to six. Even scarier, one of the servers at a local bar was diagnosed with the disease. The bar was closed down. How many people did she have contact with before the closure?
The clerk at the DMV was a lovely, intelligent lady. I wanted to ask her what I could do, so the courts put up a menu of possible forms and what they did so people wouldn't make the same mistake I had made. I told her I had asked the greeter at the DMV what form I needed to get a list of accidents I had had. She said, "Driver's abstract," without missing a beat. I told her that was not the case. It is called a driver's history and costs only $9.00 rather than $20.00. The Driver's Abstract provides information on traffic violations. Maybe most people who get into accidents where they are responsible have violated some traffic ordinance. This has not been the case with any of Mike's or my accidents.
As I left, I nearly ran over a woman. It was a freak situation that I have repeatedly experienced. I didn't see her because the support beam on the car's left side window blocked her view. It was a 'freak' situation because of how often it happens. I have had it happen several times. My way is clear; I pull out, and Yikes! There's a car, or in this case, a person, in my path. Fortunately, I saw the other person she was walking with. I braked to allow him to cross. It was only then that I saw her. He gave me a dirty look. I thought, What's his problem? I stopped. Little did I realize how close I came to doing damage. But all's well that ends well.
On the other hand, I love the safety features on my car. I have a backup camera. Mike had one on his 2010 Ford, but I didn't on my 2007 Prius. The car beeps when someone's at my side, or I go out of my lane without putting on my signal. But best of all, it brakes for me if I get too close to the car in front of me. I love it. I need all the help I can get.
I went to Safeway afterward to pick up eggs, bread, and apples. I did some impulse shopping, California rolls, and an Amy's frozen food. I like her stuff. Then I went to Costco to pick up salad and lemons. The parking lot was jammed; almost every space was taken. I have no idea what was going on. Did people get paychecks, or was it the beginning of a new month for discounts and sales? I went home. I didn't need anything immediately. When I got home, I unpacked the car. I confess to having a slice of the in-house baked bread I bought at Safeway with some butter.
Paulette called when I lay down to tell me she had dropped off my face shields. I had bought two at Ace Hardware. Judy and Paulette were painting the headbands, so they were more attractive. I had given them two; they painted one purple and one blue.
I didn't call the State insurance regulatory agency to complain about Progressive charging me for Adam's accident today. It would only be two hundred dollars I have to see if it's worth the aggravation.
I worked with K. on the phone today on comprehension. She's going into sixth grade and asked for help. She selected a book that was on grade level. As I always do, I start with sentence comprehension, which is the comprehension of a single sentence.
I have found that sentence comprehension isn't taught. You would think it is obvious, but it's not. This basic level of comprehension is skipped over. As a student said many years ago, "Oh, language is a puzzle." You'd better believe it.
Here's the first sentence we worked on.
"Rachael lay in bed, reading, waiting until the last possible minute when she absolutely had to put down her book and get out of bed." The first step in sentence comprehension is answering questions about the sentence. For example, 'Who lay in bed reading, waiting until the last possible minute when she absolutely had to put down her book and get out of bed," or "What was Rachael waiting for?" This sentence is jammed with information. I'd detail what I do, but it would be a whole chapter in my book on comprehension. It's basic sentence diagramming, identifying the relationship between the words, phrases, and clauses in the sentence by asking questions instead of making a chart.
As with most people, it was confusing for K. at first. However, I could feel her brain changing after we had worked for fifteen minutes. For students who do not have clear-cut neurological problems, this is a quick fix.
I showed this to a Somali high school student many years ago whose word recognition was excellent, but comprehension was poor. I asked detailed questions about a single sentence and told him to work on this at home. He responded that the process took too much time. I told him to do one sentence a day, and his subconscious mind would quickly take over the process, and he would no longer have to think about it consciously. He came back to me a few weeks later and said, "Thank you."
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Musings:
There was a lot of talk about defunding police. I can't imagine that anyone except for the most militant believes that the police force's guns-ablazing approach is the best. There has been talk about redistributing the funding to other professions who would then respond to calls where mental illness or domestic situations were involved.
The police departments currently have meter maids—or at least that's what they were called when I was young. It says a lot. The job of checking meters to ticket expired ones was delegated to 'maids,' 'women's work.' This has a lot to do with the macho image of the police department rushing into 'dangerous' situations. What we are seeing now is that if you approach a situation anticipating danger, it becomes dangerous.
Someone said it would be too expensive to have such a division of labor. Well, there would be fewer police officers armed to the teeth going into 'battle.' That's certainly true. They would be reserved for situations that truly call for that.
In medicine, we have PAs, physician assistants, and trained people who don't have the training to be doctors. Why can't people be trained to deal with situations with the mentally ill? Hospitals have non-medical staff who deal with mentally ill patients all the time. They're not trained in long-term therapy like a social worker. They just respond to the immediate situation with empathy and kindness to calm an excited person.
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