Thursday, April 22, 2021

 Thursday, April 22, 2021 

 

            I had another bad night, still agitated, enraged about an interpersonal issue. I was wide awake. I read for a while in the middle of the night, too preoccupied with disturbing angry thoughts to sleep. 

      After yoga this morning, I had a fun exchange with Yvette. It lifted my spirits and helped me let go of my rage.

      I called Kia to see where I could get my safety check. They said they could do it for $25. That's about what it costs. I was there by 10. After dropping the car off, I walked up to the bank to cash two checks. They told me, "No charge," when I picked up the car."

      I wanted to stop off at the engravers to order a plaque of Mike's gravestone, but I forgot to take Mike's box.

      I got home in time for my appointment with K. He kept putting his head down on the table. This wasn't his usual behavior. He explained he woke up very early that morning. We started with the line-following activity for a few minutes. He rated the activity as a 5 out of 10 today instead of a zero, as he did the other day. He said he thought it was helping. He volunteered this information on his own. Wow! Despite his exhaustion, we still went quickly through three items at a low third-grade level. His mother said that the teacher said he was below grade level on comprehension. His mom believes his problem is only with attention; I agree with his mom. We stopped after 15 minutes instead of doing the full half-hour because he was so tired and did a fair amount of work in that short period.

            I wanted to indulge this morning. I lay down to read my Louise Penny murder mystery with Gamache. I fell asleep and was out for 2 hours.

            When I woke up, I saw a text from J, saying he was home from school and 'now' would be a good time to work with him. It was almost time for my next session. I made a quick call to K's mom. She said he had trouble staying awake during his Zoom class this morning. She had to make him stand, so he stayed awake. I told her what he said about the line-work making a difference in his ability to attend. Wonderful! The line might be one factor, but I also did that visualization, which drained some of the 'dark red' in his brain. It would be hard to know what made the difference.

            I'm going to be working with K's older sister. I asked her mom if I could record our session. I will be working on word recognition: decoding longer words and reading more rapidly. Her mom said fine. I told her the video would not show her name or her face. Her mom said fine. Let's see what the girl says; I know she is timid.

            I had an appointment with A. He continues to slog but does get words he didn't get before. When he does, it's exciting. However, when he gets stuck, I have to remind him of the necessary procedure: start with the vowel and the following consonant and use cross-body blending. No matter what I do, he continues to confuse b and d. 

            In my last session for the day, A's mom said the school had sent home a sight word list for him to memorize. He knows many of them and confuses others. There's no consistency. He has problems with automatic recall. I once tried to get him to let go and just listen to what his mind had to give him. He couldn't do that for love nor money. I'm not optimistic about getting him to allow that to happen. I think everything is going to have to be done through decoding. His improvement will just have to be through an increase in the decoding speed.