Saturday, January 16, 2021

 Saturday, January 16, 2021

            There were seven of us in today's yoga class, not including Yvette, the teacher. Elise was back from visiting her family in Paris. She brought her boyfriend, his mother and a friend of hers. It was good to have Elise back.

            I called the salesperson from the solar company. I am buying a battery and some more panels. This will allow us to be independent of the grid should it go down. We have a very high bill because we run three refrigerators on the property, not to mention other appliances. Katherine will call me back on Monday when she follows up with some questions at Hawaiian Solar, the folks who sold us the rest of the panels.

            I did some work today, updating blog entries. I have run behind. 

            I finally got around to cleaning Elsa's ears. Her skin has been breaking out again. She was doing so well. I thought it might be the MakesNoClains. I actually took her off the medication the vet prescribed. That stuff compromises her immune system. If I can get her off it, I will. I saw some discoloration around one ear, suggesting an ear infection. I thought it might be the cause of the outbreak. But it's on the side by the good ear, not the bad one. Dorothy suspects that she is being affected by the stress of others all around her. Could be.

            I got an email from Kaiser telling me to sign up for the Covid Vaccine. I made a date for February 2. I don't know if that's when the appointments start, or I wasn't that fast on the ball to make an appointment, and others jumped in. I suspect the latter since I got this email yesterday. Nonetheless, I am signed up. All I have to do now is remember that I am and go.

            I also made an appointment for a telephone consultation with my doctor. Kaiser isn't making in-person appointments. All they offer are teleconferences. I don't know how someone will feel the area just above my belly button and determine if the hardness I feel there is normal or not. I'm not too worried. If it's something bad, I suspect a hernia rather than cancer.  

            I finally did some vacuuming. I've been putting it off because Josh has been home all week. I don't like to disturb him. I worked in the area on the slab and not directly over their heads. 

            I looked for more books in the library. I found one more. I also counted the number of books St. Patrick's ordered and the number of books I've already sent to him. The librarian requested 740 books approximately. I have sent out about four hundred by now. Sandor grabbed a big bunch of them after the request from St. Patrick's came in. I feel somewhat bad about having the librarian select so many that I gave to Sandor, but it only makes sense for me to do so. The books Sandor took, and maybe will take, I don't have to search for, I don't have to pack up, I don't have to take to the PO, and I don't have to pay to have shipped. It's a no-brainer.

            I watched the second half of the movie Blackbird with Susan Sarandon. She and Sam O'Neil were the only performers I recognized. I absent-mindlessly watched the credits. Kate Winslet's name came up. Huh? I didn't remember seeing her. I scrolled back to watch some of the closing scenes. There was one blond woman, but she looked nothing like Winslet. I checked on Wiki to see what character she played. I went back to the film, not having identified the character she played. I had to strain to see any similarity. Her hair was straight and brown rather than curly and blonde. But more importantly, there are telltale quirks that I identify with her. They were gone. Mind-blowing.

_____-_____-______

Musings:

            Rightly or wrongly, I imagine people making negative comments when I present my reading method. I can imagine inexperienced people saying no one needs instruction on how to read. All they have to do is practice. There are those, even teachers, who hold with that idea. They don't believe that something so natural for them could be hard for someone else. I thought of an analogy.

            Expecting students to learn from just watching you reading is a little bit like expecting someone to learn tennis from just watching the ball go back and forth over the net. If they don't see the players, they have no idea what causes the ball to move the way it does.

            The analogy isn't perfect, but it's close to perfect for many students. The mechanics of reading, which go on in the brain, are not visible to learners. Most programs teach by modeling. That works for some. As Marie Clay says, there are those students who learn to read no matter what program you use. The opposite is also true. Some have a tough time learning to read no matter what program you use. Most programs show students what is involved in reading by teaching phonics, asking comprehension questions, and modeling the answers. It puts most of the learning load on the students. What teachers offer is comparable with seeing the racket hit the ball in tennis but still not seeing the player.

            Cognition and neuroscience give us more information about what goes on in the brain of good readers; it shows us how good readers use the tool, which is their brain, to accomplish the task of reading. That helps. But there is so much more that has to be taught. It is a hugely complex task. What's impressive is that so many learn it without too much fuss.