Wednesday, April 14, 2021
I finally got to the bank. I've had my Covid debit card for a while now and two large checks for several weeks. I deposited two of the items and got cash for the third. Then I headed home.
I stopped at Costco to get gas; I had slightly less than a quarter of a tank. I processed my cards, had the pump handle in my hand, and couldn't figure out how to open the gas tank. I checked inside the car for a button. I couldn't find one. I ran around to the car's passenger side to get the manual out. I called one of the attendants for help. He saw a button on the dashboard. I explained that this was only the second time I had filled the tank since I had bought the card. Then I realized it was the first time for me. I started with a full tank on June 8 of last year. I had taken the car in for service twice, and they had topped the tank each time. This is the first time I've put gas in the car. Some of that is because it's an electric/hybrid car, and some because I haven't driven much. I used to go out twice a day, once for Bikram and once to go to school to tutor. Now, if I go out once a week, that's good.
I had my 4th grade D at 11:30. His mother said that he couldn't use her phone because she had to leave. The last time we tried to use his tablet, it didn't work. He said he'd charged it, but it was still dead. I don't know when he discovered that all was well. It's not like him to think things through. We could have been working on the tablet for a while once he realized that it was fine.
D and I only had fifteen minutes together before he had to go back to the school zoom meeting. But it was an amazing fifteen minutes. He used every strategy I taught him. He caught his errors. When he had to decode a word, he looked for those vowels and worked from there. When he was unsure of his answer, he reread the paragraph to see if he could get more information. Wow! Wow! Wow!
Last week his mom told me we could no longer meet on Fridays because D was back in school. She was going to get back to me and give me possible times. Today she said she didn't think D needed two sessions a week; he was doing much better now that he was working with his teachers. My gut twisted. I love it when I put in over a year's work and see the child finally internalizing the strategies I have taught them, and then someone who has been working with him for two weeks gets all the credit. How does someone cope with that without going ballistic? I kept my mouth shut, but boy, it hurts.
In contrast, when I asked D if he had learned these strategies from his teacher or me, he was clear that the credit belonged to me. It would be nice if I didn't feel this way, but I do. Does anyone have a solution other than just moving on? I do that, but it still hurts.
I had a session with M at 2 pm. I gave her a choice between an expository or narrative reading. She had to read the narrative writing because I didn't have a copy of the text. She asked for the inferencing work with the expository text. We were beyond the halfway point when she asked to switch to the narrative text.
M read a sentence from page 4 of a book. Something was confusing about it. I told her how the two sets of facts presented in the paragraph didn't make sense. I didn't understand how they connected. I told her my strategy: I held the question about the passage in my mind until I had read on. It would become apparent, or I would know there is no meaningful connection, and I let it go. It became clear that there was no meaningful connection between the two actions as we read on.
I was distracted during my session with J. He had two math problems that I had trouble solving. I solved them, but I could only use conventional arithmetic strategies. There were two other options: Seeing Structure Generalizing and Modeling and Using Tools. I have no idea how to use those.
I got another shock during J's session. While he was working on writing a summary of information on volcanoes, I got a text from Julia from Step-Up tutoring announcing the availability of math tutors. I have volunteered to be a resource for the tutors needing help in reading repeatedly. They just announced that some of the tutors are available for math help. Still no response to my offer. What am I supposed to make out of that? I managed to calm down enough to think I wanted to consult the math advisors. I don't understand how to use Seeing Structure Generalizing and Modeling and Using Tools. I would like to know what these mean so I can help my student.
After finishing the math, he went back to his science lesson on volcanoes. He had to summarize the information in the diagram on how volcanoes work. As he wrote away and I typed away on my update. I checked what he wrote. There was one spelling mistake. I thought he included everything. It was a summary. I asked what kind of grades he got on his writing. Bs. I thought what he wrote was adequate. What does he need to do to get an A in sixth grade? I found myself suspicious that his teacher was biased. J is Guatemalan. I'm going to do some polishing of the next thing he writes and see what grade he gets. Will I only get a B in a sixth-grade writing exercise? How do I challenge it if I do? I asked the teacher for information on his reading level. He didn't respond.
I had my adolescent D at 4. He still wasn't home yet. His mom said they always seem to run later than expected; we should make the appointment later. He was on before 4:30. This is a bright boy with typical adolescent ego issues. I needed to address those as much as I do his reading problems.
In our last session, I asked him if he felt there was any improvement. He said no. But he also told me that he did try to figure out some of the printed words in a video game he was playing. Both his mother and I understood that was HUGE! I need him to see his progress from a different perspective.
I asked him if he had ever jump-started a car, and if he knew what inertia was. It was yes to the first question and no to the second. When I asked him to evaluate his progress in reading since we started, he thought he was at a 3 when we started, and he had moved up to a 3 ½. For him, that was going nowhere fast. I explained the analogy of the stalled car and his progress in reading; getting off the dime takes the most energy. He is always a good worker, but he gets tired. He said he didn't understand why he was more tired at the end of the day. I had to explain it to him. He always expected himself to be a peak performance. Because he was tired, I took over and modeled. Modeling is a perfect way to teach. It is a time-honored manner to teach used forever. I went along smoothly and then was compelled to stop. Something was going on for D; something changed in his mind; he was in learning mode. It was time to stop input and let him digest. At the end of the session, he agreed he had experienced a shift. He no longer wanted to learn to read just because he wasn't like his peers; now, he wanted to learn to read for its own sake. There was some enthusiasm, some hope.
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