Thursday, November 18, 2021

 Thursday, November 18, 2021

 

    My leg has been feeling weak the past couple of days. This too will pass -or it won't. Then back to the drawing board. I think it is coming from the changes in my back. Both my legs feel weak. No one says I need a hip replacement in my right leg. 

   I got my Moderna booster shot today. They're well organized at Kaiser.  I had an appointment, so it wasn't a free-for-all.  It was all over quickly. I'll be spending Thanksgiving with the unvaccinated.  It will be outdoors; there will get great breezes up there.  It shouldn't be a problem, but I want to be on the safe side.

   I saw a post on Facebook by an old student of mine who is now the mother of two. Her youngest, an elementary school-age girl, contracted Covid and is suffering from heart problems.  I knew that the vaccine could cause heart problems. Winds up Covid can, too, even in the young.  Choosing between the two on some issues is settled by going: eeny, meany, miny moe.  Your guess is as good as mine.  However, I believe the death rate is still much higher when it comes to the disease.  Although I think some people believe the Covid statistics are all lies. Oh, well. I know any is possible.  I went with the statical likelihood that the government does not have that much control over the media-yet, and it would have to be a worldwide conspiracy. I don't think we're that organized.

     I emailed my primary doctor at Kaiser for this persistent lousy feeling. I feel it is largely due to a nasty bout of grief. It comes and goes. It's not that I ever forget, but sometimes I do better with just getting on with my life. There's plenty to do.  I have friends, and I have work. I have a lovely home, and I live in Hawaii. Pretty close to perfect.  

     Brian and Tommy came over to hard-wire the remaining appliances:  the Solar Edge solar panel monitoring app, and then they realized they had to do the same with the Tesla app.  I had texted Brian this morning to tell him the Solar Edge was still out.  He reminded me that he promised to be by today to fix that problem.  I forgot his promise. This is what I've been feeling like, less than sharp. I apologized. My excuse is grief. Grief can be debilitating. It is exhausting. 

    Scott stopped by to pick up Yvette's shoebox that someone on Craig's list had bought.  I had him look at my screens and the plastic I purchased to cover the opening when the screens are in the shop for repair. He will be the one taking them down and helping me get them in the car.  I was under the impression my screens were about seven feet by four feet.  He said these screens were fourteen feet across with a support bar in the middle.  I told him I didn't think so. I washed them all when the painters took them out.  I didn't have to deal with such a large screen.  He then figured out the two sections snapped together; they looked like they were one screen. 

     I washed Elsa today.  I missed Saturday a week ago. She went two weeks between baths. She started throwing lesions on her abdomen.  When I gave her the flea protection, she threw more on that spot and on her neck.   I decided to wash her twice this week, once today and once on Sunday, and then return to my every Saturday routine if the problem clears.

   I worked on my ad for my The Phonics Discovery System videos. I plan to post it on Facebook and to everyone in my email address book. You'll probably get a second copy when I do.

 

 Here's a copy of it:

        Here are two videos demonstrating my method for teaching phonics through discovery, The Phonics Discovery System Phase I ((https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy93zNI8Fw8; )

 and The Phonics Discovery System Phase II (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egkh-a7adYc)

 

       Many of you already know that I had success teaching your students with this method.  Recently, I have been teaching this approach to tutors who are untrained in any teaching methods. After an hour of instruction, several have felt comfortable enough to use it with their students.  A few have gotten back to me to report success.   Below is a series of three emails I received from one of the tutors.   For those of you who have methods for teaching phonics you are happy with, this method can be incorporated a few minutes a week and have success. 

    NO new materials are required. You can use the students' names, sight words, or any text the students can understand. You can incorporate the process into your current phonics lessons.

   The foundation of the method is learning phonics through discovery so students can become independent learners.  When they achieve that approach to learning, they can learn anything.  It does not eliminate traditional methods of teaching phonics. While it can be used almost exclusively, I think of it as a complement to the conventional approaches.

 

Tutor emails:

Sent: Tuesday, September 7, 2021, 01:17:11 PM HST

Subject: thank you!

 

Hi, Betty --  

 

       Thank you again for your "office hours" help yesterday.  I had my first session with Elijah this afternoon, and it was definitely productive.  

        I found your videos on YouTube (The Phonics Discovery System Five Stories: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0InNt2c8oFw&t=499s).  

I'm sure no one will play that "full video" for Ezra, but I listened to it myself as I was puttering around the house for about 15 minutes yesterday. You're right -- it did heighten my awareness of how words are comprised, and I think I brought that usefully into my tutoring this afternoon.

      Anyway, I'm quite appreciative.

                                                                                                Best, Harry

 

Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2021, 03:48:39 PM HST

Subject: Re: thank you!

 

Hi, Betty --

        I just wanted to follow up and tell you that my 3rd grader, who couldn't read at all a couple of weeks ago, read a book today.  It was a 1st-grade book --  but it was a book, and he did it.  

        Amazing progress.  Thank you again.

                                                                                                     -- Harry

 

Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2021, 06:41:40 PM HST

Subject: Re: thank you!

 

Hi, Betty --

         I don't know if you recall working with me a couple of months ago, but I had a student who was turning 9 and could only read about 10-15 "sight words" and couldn't do anything beyond that.  You were a great help, as my notes below suggest.

         Today his mother reported that his teacher says the student has caught up to the rest of his class and now raises his hand and wants to get called on to read.  You can imagine how thrilled we all are. It's a little sad in that it suggests his class is reading well below 3rd-grade level... but it's a great success in that my student had no confidence or expectation that he'd ever been able to do it, and in just a few months has come to feel like he can hold his own.

          So thank you again, on my behalf and his.

                                                                                                                                                Best, Harry

 

  I had a 3 pm appointment with third grade A. I have him working on 3rd-grade material. He still has problems with word recognition, but he does all right with comprehension, at least inferring the paragraph's main point. His mother told me they want to talk to me about what the teacher feels he still needs. That was over a week ago.   I have asked her repeatedly to play the Five Stories video for him. She makes excuses: too busy. I often think of quitting because of her lack of cooperation.  I can't guarantee the audiofile The Phonics Discovery System-Five Stories will help, but if it doesn't harm her son, why wouldn't she press the play button.  I have similar problems getting A to follow directions. Now, mom has no learning problems. She has three master's degrees under her belt.

    I started adolescent D with the copying activity, teaching him how to collect letters in his mind, hold them there and then write them.  He did reasonably well; then, he reversed some of the letters. He said, yes, he often writes letters out of order. I asked him if there were visual perceptual disturbances soon after we started working together. He said definitely not. I find younger children very aware if they have problems like that.  I don't know if D's lack of self-awareness is indicative of an individual problem or if it is just typical of kids his age.  I had him describe the movement pattern. 

     D's perceptual disturbance pattern had some familiar elements and one that was new for me.  The familiar elements were the movement direction.  His disturbance was in a spiral pattern, moving from the outside in in a counterclockwise direction.  Unexpected was where he processed visual images; his area of disturbance was above the left temple. I believe the best area for visual processing material is in front of the forehead. Moreover, his spiral didn't increase or decrease in speed; the speed remained constant in his case.  

   While I have been feeling untypically nervous and cranky in many of my tutoring sessions, I found this session with D delightful. I was calm and happy. It's like a spontaneous mood shift.  I could have been cranky with either student.  The crankiness I've been feeling while teaching is unusual.  I always enjoy teaching; I approach it like a fisherman watching for fish in the stream. It's a form of meditation for me.  This increased nervousness is disturbing.

   I called Matthew, the head of the special education department at the local middle school.  I had an idea for some work to do with one of his students.  He is in middle school and still has to make marks when he adds two numbers. This student also has trouble reading. Matthew says he is a good kid, anxious to learn.  I created an 11 x 11 frame for him. I instructed Matthew to write the numbers 0 through 10 in one of the edge columns. Then have the boy fill in the number of squares represented by the number.  Once he can do it quickly in sequence, Matthew should change the exercise, filling the numbers in random order. The objective is to strengthen the association between the abstract numeral and the concrete quantity.  One year I used this approach with a second grader with William's Syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects a student's ability to understand math, among other problems.  The child hated, hated, the process. Every day I gave her the form; in her case, the numbers were always in sequence.  The following year, when she was in third grade, she was able to do the math.  I can't believe she could keep up with the grade-level lessons, but she miraculously could do more.  I thought it was worth a try with this middle school child after reading how the brain develops the connection between the abstract and concrete.