Thursday, July 22, 2021

 Thursday, July 22, 2021

 

As I awoke, I felt alone but not lonely. As I dozed again, I had a weird dream that Mike left me because he didn't love me anymore. That was upsetting. Since he died, when I had dreams like that, he took action. He'd move the towels in the bathroom, if not some large piece of furniture. In my dream, he was still alive. I ran into him on the street. All our connections were gone. We were strangers. It was weird and disconcerting. Worse yet, I didn't feel his presence as I have since he died. I was dealing with loneliness. What can I say: bring it on.

I had Mama K's crew at 8:30.Third-grade K was my first' victim.' Someone was yelling at him to take his iPad out of his pocket. K begged to be allowed to hold on to it. He said it was only in his pocket; he wouldn't use it during our session. The voice insisted. Poor K started to sob but relinquished his iPad. It wound up the mysterious voice wasn't his dad but his 18-year-old brother, acting out the role of the big man in the house. While big brother was saying he was assuring K gave all his attention to our session, it had the opposite effect. He spent several minutes arguing with K,  The boy was desolate without it, hardly in condition for a tutoring session. I talked to him for a minute, comforting him. I asked him which was more important, his best friend or his iPad. He said they were equally important. It winds up he sleeps with his iPad. It sounds like his iPad is his 'blue blankey;' it's a source of comfort for him. It is steady and reliable. Amazingly, he calmed down quickly and did a great job in the session.

Twin A had a perfect recall of letter names, even g, and q, which I had never covered with her except when I originally surveyed her knowledge of the alphabet. She remembered this from what she heard in school. I started working with her on phonics. She was able to identify the letters and the sounds in -at. However, she has problems blending. Bat came out as brat and sat as slat. 

I teach starting with the vowel, then working to the end of the word, and only then adding on the beginning sounds. Now I have to think of how to help Twin A articulate the transition from /b/ to that short /a/. The folks at the  University of Florida Reading institute say, "say the sounds quickly."  That's what she did, and she added an extra sound. How do I teach her to blend a consonant with the following vowel?  /B/ is a stopped consonant. Blending them is a challenge. To make the /b/ in isolation, you press your lips together, create some pressure with your breath, and then release your lips. The /b/ explodes from your mouth; it is called a plosive. When you blend it, you have to do steps one and two, but step three is different. As you open your mouth to release your breath (and the sound), you must form the vowel sound immediately. Very tricky. I model it. I ask the student to form their mouth with me. Let's see how this goes with A.

Twin E.did better with holding the sounds of-at versus ap when blending different initial sounds. However, she had no recall of the word the.

     This wound up being an easy day. I didn't even have J from California. J started ghosting me. My first reaction was to get angry. Among other things, I had been pushing like mad to complete 12 sessions this summer so he could get a gift card with enough money to take his family out to a restaurant. I contacted the Step Up Tutoring program. He completed 12 sessions; he could get the card. This poor kid has been in school nonstop. He went to summer school and didn't get home until supper time. We both needed a break. I love the tutoring problem, except they require me to be involved with a student for two hours a week. During the summer, they require sessions to be at least 45 minutes long. Research shows that shorter, more frequent sessions are more effective than longer sessions. I first wrote to J's mom, who speaks no English, asking her what she wanted to do. After I learned we had satisfied the 12-session limit. I wrote that we were taking a break. She didn't answer my first email. She did my second, thanking me for helping her son. My best guess is that she didn't want him to continue but was afraid to speak up.

      I did a few hours of garden work. I always put it off and then love wrestling with the vegetation. All I'm good for is weeding. Planting or feeding is out of my reach.

       I finally started work on writing a new version of the article on my reading method. Rather than edit the one I had already written, I chose to start from scratch using the organization of the video for the article's structure.      

I read something about the film Euro Trip being a good movie. Matt Damon has a cameo in it; so does Lucy Lawless. I thought it was pretty stupid, or let's say, adolescent. Its humor is all based on sexual references and events. I like British comedy, at least the ones they made before being influenced by the American movie machine.

 

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Musings

            Others are to us what they illuminate in us. I don't mean that others don't have a separate existence worth learning about. I don't mean that the needs of others are irrelevant; everyone is just at our service. I mean that people are important to us because of their role in our lives. That's just reality. Mike was more important to me than almost anyone else I know. Surprise! I think the person we become is deeply influenced by the people we hang out with. We respond to their positive and negative reactions to us. Aspects of ourselves are illuminated by particular people, just as there are aspects of us that fall into neglect because we have no one to illuminate them.