Sunday, March 27, 2022

 Sunday, March 27, 2022

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  On my morning walk, I ran into two women I hadn't seen in a while, MaryAnn and Paulette. We talked for a few minutes. It's always a delight to connect with them.

    I planned to leave for church at 8:30. I didn't go with Judy because she was the first lector. Unfortunately, I hadn't set my alarm. I depend on my alarm to remind me to do anything. I didn't even bother checking the church parking lot. I went straight to the library lot. I got the last spot there. There is an open gate between the church and that lot. The church parking lot was full, as I expected. I sat in the back of the church.

     I had requested an afternoon time with the M & W sisters so that I could go to the 9 am mass. I prefer it because I know more people. Their mom asked if I could meet with them before noon. I offered 11 and then thought that would be too early. I would leave church after ten and get home between 10:30 and 11. I knew I would want a short rest before working with the girls. I asked for 11:30. She okayed that. 

   It was first-grade M's birthday. I sang Happy Birthday to her in the Ross style, developed because Mike couldn't carry a tune. We made a virtue out of a vice; it became our thing. She asked me to sing it the usual way. I did, and she shared a version she knew with a joke ending. Sorry, I can't remember it off-hand, even though I was familiar with it. We worked on co-writing a story about what happened on her birthday. Her parents bought ten pizzas and a birthday cake for her to share with her basketball teammates.   

     With fifth grade W, I continued working on her spelling. I used her last story. I read sentences to her. She had to remember them and dictate the letters to me while I typed what she said. It was her preference. I think her spelling is pretty good. She did spell saw as sal. That was an interesting error but not a big deal. It meant she had problems when she started reading, and the wrong spelling got stuck in her mind. She had to override that programming. She also made a mistake with dipped spelling is diped. She sounded it out correctly; there's a consonant doubling rule after a short vowel. There are exceptions to the rule. "There are more rabbits than robins" is the saying I learned through Orton Gillingham. (The a in rabbits and the o in robins are short vowels. Robins is an exception to the rule. English!!!) Her mother said her spelling was so bad she couldn't figure out the words. She gave W's spelling of the word scientist as an example. When I asked W to spell it, she sounded it out and produced sientist. That is a perfect phonetic spelling of the word; only the c is missing. I suspected it was the mom who had the problem. 

   M & W's mother is convinced both her children have dyslexia. She assumed it was her daughter's problem when she didn't recognize the spelling. Given what I'd seen, I thought the problem was more the mom's than the girls. The more serious problem was she had convinced both her children they were disabled. I see more psychological issues than academic ones because of parental pressure. 

   Today when I started with M, I asked her if either her teacher or her mom had told her how well she was doing. No! I even spoke to mom about it earlier in the week. I wanted confirmation that the teacher had said she was beyond where she had to be. Still, the mom made no effort to give her daughter the good news. I told M today that she was doing very well. Since I didn't have the teacher's exact words, doing very well was as far as I was willing to go.

   I speculated that mom might be German. That's how my mom was. (She was born in Germany in 1903 and came to America when she was thirty-four.) She believed giving me positive feedback was harmful to me. She never gave it as an act of personal sacrifice and love. When she moved in with Mike and me at eighty, she said the following to me. "I know I shouldn't say this. It is not good for you, but I can't help myself. I have been telling everyone what a good daughter you are." Oh, well. While living in Princeton, when my mom was alive, I worked with a boy from a German family. I asked his mom about my mom's behavior. She said my mom was an extreme version of a German parent. Just my luck!