Friday, July 2, 2021

 Friday, July 2, 2021

 

            Last night, I had no pain or discomfort in my left hip. Go figure! I did make another change in my walk. I made sure that I fully opened the right hip joint as I walked. My right inner thigh and abdominal muscles are tight. Walking this way puts less strain on my left leg.  

          Mana K canceled. Her family left early for a weekend of camping. 

             I had a Saturday session with 6th grade D.  We started with two weekly sessions. I thought three would be better. Research shows that frequent short lessons work better than long, infrequent ones. I offered his mom three twenty-minute sessions, which would cost the same as two half-hour sessions. She chose three half-hour sessions. D did the exercise of naming the letters in words in a text in sequence on his own. The more he does that, the more quickly his reading will improve. Perception was his main problem because his reading improved dramatically when he read the transcribed text, which forced his attention. I told him to instruct his mind to 'see' every letter in every word. This made a difference. I could feel the change in his mind and hear the change in his reading. He only made two errors in the transcribed passage; he read no as on and misread the word it.

      I have noticed this phenomenon in other students. Students' reading improves, and they still make mistakes with the first words they learn, the words on the first sight word list. I have always assumed they were words they either memorized incorrectly or stored in the wrong part of the brain. As a result of what I read in Dehaene" s book, Consciousness, and the Brain, I have developed a different theory. Dehaene writes that we 'don't see' what we don't focus on. The mind believes those first words are old familiars and don't require attention. The student focuses on the longer words that require more effort and doesn't attend to those familiar sight words. When teachers scream, "Just pay attention," they are on the right track. The problem is the student doesn't know what that means. What is it they have to do differently? The teachers have no idea how to help those students. Ron Del Davis's exercise forming those little words in clay makes sense. It forces the student to become aware of the letters in the word. I see improvement with just naming the letters in words, but I can see that some students need more.

            I had an appointment with my acupuncturist. Two weeks ago, I told her I was having a problem with my right foot. The problem had not only persisted, but it had also gotten worse. I wondered if she could help. At first, I thought I had Morton's neuroma. Then I thought I had plantar fasciitis. Neither problem accurately matched what I was experiencing. The discomfort was in the ball of my foot, but it wasn't like a pebble between my metatarsals, symptomatic of a neuroma. While the muscles in my foot seemed tight, there was no heel pain, a clear marker of plantar fasciitis. She said the problem was on the gall bladder meridian. I was concerned that I had a gall bladder problem.   I asked if there was a possible psychological cause. She said the gall bladder meridian is associated with decision-making. I am having some regrets about my retirement plans now that I'm all alone. I am lonely.

            I drove down to Safeway before I went home. I am no longer a Honeycrisp fan. Judy brought me a bag of small pink ladies. They were delicious. Safeway had large ones. I know small fruit holds more flavor. Hopefully, they are as good. 

            I had an appointment with Tommy, my tech when I got home. I was ready for him to slice and splice my video on my reading method. I emailed him my chart showing which slides to use from each Zoom recording, a copy of the original PowerPoint so he could use the numbers to determine the slide, and my Zoom username and password to access the videos.

            Manifest has taken a dark turn. One of the people the protagonists are 'helping' is part of the larger plot. Given that she was on the original flight, it sounds like this was planned by the organization, which is now running these brutal experiments on some passengers. They could also have snuck her in once the plane was on the ground. Hmmm! A mystery within a mystery. Yuck! I have enough stress in my life.