Wednesday, August 11, 2021

 Wednesday, August 11, 2021

 

         For the last two nights, walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night was a challenge. There was pinching in my left hip. Later in the morning, it wasn't; if anything, it was easier than usual. Surprise! How did this happen?

           I had a session with sixth grade D at 8:30 am. The improvement in his reading continued. We started working on a written piece. He didn't give me much to work with. Using the see a color, identify the object that is that color prompt that generally works with kids, I got something out of him. I had to add a lot and then pull more information from him. He's not making significant contributions yet. I did the writing and expanded as I wrote. The objective was to demonstrate how to develop an idea from a lean beginning. He was impressed.  

    After the session, I spoke to his mom. He's being homeschooled. She was amazed to see him zoom through the first four sight word lists. But then, when it came to reading material, he was halting. He may have been nervous reading to his mom. When he read for me, he could even catch errors and self-correct. On one occasion, he switched brain modalities between automatic processing and conscious decoding. I thought of moving him up to 3rd grade but didn't want to push it and force him into failure. I decided to go through the 2nd-grade book. 

    Mom is using some phonics material with him. She is noticing that he has trouble with vowel digraphs and diphthongs. It may be a good idea to follow up on that since she is using it. I can teach her my approach, discovering the pattern. I asked for a handwriting sample since he said he had trouble. His mom said when he writes; he leaves out the vowel letters.

      I was in a heartbroken state for a good part of the day. Some of it is Mike, but some of it is the rest of the family. I'm someone who loves to be part of a community. As I walk, I introduce everyone to everyone else. I love knowing what everyone thinks. Then I have a family consisting of people who only want minimal contact with other family members. They all stick to their nuclear family group. And then there is no system for resolving differences. It sucks. If I had Mike, I wouldn't feel so lonely. 

      I had Mama K's crew today. K had to write something in his agenda book, instructions for mom. It was legible, but there was no spatial consistency. Of course, these books leave so little space that it's hard for me to write in them, no less a spatially challenged 3rd grader. K had no paper available, so writing was out. I just asked him how his day went. How many times did the teacher have to call your name? Three times. How many times did they have to call it last year? Two. Who knows if his concentration has improved? My goal is to get him to pay attention to the problem instead of having an external source, parent, or teacher, constantly call him back. 

       I told mom not to call him to attend. To make sure he didn't have his tablet open a video game, but other than that, just to observe. Then, complimenting him each time, he brought his attention back to the work. 

       Mom was out today, but dad was home. He kept telling K to pay attention. I kept asking him, "Please, let me deal with it." I'm sure he had no idea what I was doing. I can always ask for help if I need it.

     I had Twin A next. She said they work on letters today in school. I wasn't sure if this was a small group lesson with kids as behind as she was on identifying the letter names. From what I could tell, a group of 9-11 kids worked on writing the letters. She named the letters they worked on with confidence. Then we worked on the -at family. She struggled with blending. Boy, did she struggle! I couldn't get her to use cross-body blending. I repeated the words, "Put your hand on shoulder #1," over and over as I modeled it. She was on another planet. I'm not sure how much of her inability to attend is avoidance and how much is neurological. 

     Twin E. had to pick out the word the from the array of words the, there, and they in that order, numbered 1, 2, 3. Which one is the? She gave me the correct answer. I wrote them again, in a different order there, the, they. Which one is the? Again, she gave me the correct answer. Then I started with the -at family. She read -at as that. It was a very slow start, but then, she zoomed through all the rest of the words in the -at family.

     I worked with adolescent D at 4:30. As I always do, I asked him, "How was school?" Good. "How did the reading go?" Good. It is the very first time he has responded that way. I asked his permission to tell his mom. I also asked him if he would prefer to tell her. He said no. Okay. Not sure what that is about. This improvement has shown up after we did the last release. I have always felt there was some trauma underlying his reading problem. I have no idea what that trauma was. I do believe it was just something relatively small that upset him. His parents didn't respond perfectly. It felt like they tried the 'laugh-it-off' approach, a good strategy when it works. Children look to their parents to know what is serious and what is trivial. His response had gone too far to have laughter pull him back from the brink.

    He chose to work on the sight word sentences. I always have him choose; it gives him some control over the situation. I don't go through the sentences in the same order. His recall isn't good enough to memorize those sentences; if he thinks he knows them, he makes mistakes. He caught several errors and self-corrected. 

    So far, it has taken half an hour to get through all the sentences. That hasn't changed. Adolescent D's reading speed and accuracy have improved. It goes slowly because he doesn't respond quickly when I tell him to read a sentence. It could be up to 30 seconds before he says the word, and then he often as, "Which sentence?" I addressed this problem today. It is as if his mind jumps the track. He literally loses his train of thought. He agreed. I asked him how he felt about it. He said he didn't care. He wasn't belligerent; he was reporting how he felt. I thanked him for trusting me. I can do little to help him if he's not invested in the change. Is he this way because he's given up, or is this just his nature- he invests in nothing?

        Using the copy posted on YouTube, I watched a version of the video on my reading method that looks clear and with the audio in sync. Two slides needed a bit of snipping—too much silence at the end of one and a false start on a second one. Tommy says I can access this version through Facebook. I tried. Not a chance.

        Judy dropped off two stalks of celery and half an onion as per my request. I have a hunger for tuna fish salad. I need those two ingredients but not a lot of them either. I chopped up both stalks and a little bit of the onion. I'll return the rest of the onion to her tomorrow. I put the salad in the fridge to marinate. Mike always did that. Tuna fish salad tastes so much better when the flavors have had to chance to mingle. Tonight, I had a broiled chicken leg. Tomorrow, I'll have the tuna salad. 

        B called. He read I was down. Judy checks on me every day. She calls, texts, or comes over. Besides, only B and Linda in England respond to me directly when they see I'm down from reading the update. Linda sends me an email wishing me well, and B calls. John Zim will call when he sees I have a problem that needs solving. I have several people who read it to check I'm okay. I don't know if I could handle everyone calling on the updates mailing list, over 40 people. I can't imagine everyone reads it. I'm always amazed to find out that someone does. I'm grateful for the interest. While some read it only to find out how I am, I hope some enjoy my shared thoughts and observations.