Saturday, March 20, 2021

Saturday, March 20, 2021

 

            I couldn't reach Dorothy this morning. She was in Seattle, probably adjusting to the different time zone. A friend who read my update and saw I bought a yellow diesel gas can, called to say that he had five full five-gallon yellow diesel cans, and I should feel free to use them. I use the diesel to kill the haole koa trees that grow like mad here.

            We only had three students for yoga today. Of the five women who said they would come to the Saturday morning classes, zero showed up. It's hard to make a change; I understand. I had problems with my left leg this morning. It was so strained by the difference in my walk it limited my yoga. And then my phone rang in the middle of the class. It was B. I don't usually answer calls. I just quickly said, "Yoga," and hung up. He must not have heard what I said because he called back immediately. Concerned that he was having an emergency, I went into the house to take the call. No emergency; it was just that he had just read about my diesel gas container adventure. He told me he had five yellow 5-gallon containers with diesel fuel. "Please, feel free to use what's in them."

            I had my second class with teenager D. He had said he didn't have trouble with reading, only with spelling. He's a bright boy. Formal testing has him on a first/second-grade level. It was hard to know if he didn't know he had problems reading, or he hoped he could avoid having me see the truth. Is this a way of protecting his pride, or is he unaware he has a problem? The first choice is a worry; the second isn't. 

            I gave him a choice about what material we would use for Phase I work. Did he want to work on third-grade material, fifth-grade material, a book written in Hawaiian Pigeon, or a philosophy book I was reading? He chose the philosophy book. With this method, you can use any material. No, I did not go zooming through the text.

            We worked on one sentence for an hour. I led him to determine the number of syllables and then figure out the sounds in each syllable. I wrote the words. I modeled the relationship between the sounds and the letters. He did what he could. My goal was phonemic awareness, the single best predictor of reading success.

            I learned something new today, as I often do, working with the reading method I developed. One word we worked on was the word 'principle.' Adolescent D did well on the first two sounds of prin. When I asked him what sound the 'I' made, he told me it didn't make a sound.   After clearing up that problem,  I also emphasized there is a vowel letter in every syllable. Well, not quite, but close enough. English always has an exception. In this case, the word 'rhythm.' That baby' is a two-syllable word; there is no vowel letter in the second syllable. Someone thought the way this student did; the nasalized consonants embedded the vowels- no need to add an extra one. Wrong!

            Then we came to the last syllable in prin/ci/ple. What's the first sound in the last syllable? He said '/b/. I thought, Oh, boy. This kid does have trouble hearing the sounds. Yikes! He's right. I said /ble/ for that syllable. Here, p and b are allophonic in English. Who knew? 

            After half an hour, I asked if he wanted to continue or quit. He said, "Continue." I asked if it was because he was having fun or because he wanted to push through. He said, "Push through." I told him it was time to quit. He had told me that he had the mental habit of shutting down when someone tried to teach him to read. He changed his comment to "sort of fun." We completed another half hour. I covered several phonics rules along the way. I don't expect students to remember the rules. I am just alerting them to their existence. It's like, "on your trip, look out for these sights." Deep knowledge is acquired through seeing the patterns over and over again. You might ask, doesn't that happen when you read. No. The letters are just a blur for many kids, not because they have bad eyesight but because they have not looked at the word in detail. Studying detail results in awareness of those details. We become more aware and recognize patterns more quickly.

            I did some more gardening. The day gets away from me. I don't think I'm that busy. Of course, I need at least one hour for napping.

            I had an appointment with my acupuncturist. I am excited by my work with her. She did something injurious last time, draping my left leg over the edge of the table to better access the tight muscles in my upper left thigh. Uh-Uh! Those muscles were so tight they could not be reached with this stretch. The best I can hope for is that I don't get damaged. Aside from that, she is doing spectacular work. Her work on my right hamstring has created room for more movement in my left hip. That's how it works. 

            I stopped off to check on Costco. The parking lot was full. That meant a long wait on the cashier lines. I went home to read and nap. Boy, Theroux's view of Africa is so dark. One line sticks with me. He made friends with an African man of the middle class. They traveled across many unemployed people who hung around in the streets laughing, dancing, and begging. A guy traveling with Theroux said, "This is what the end of the world will look like." He saw it all as despair. It does sound like a large number of Africans live that way. It weighs heavily on my heart.

            And then I watched the end of Coming to America. Too bad I'm reading the Theroux book at this time. I see Akeem and his family as rich oppressors of the poor.