Monday, October 24, 2022

 Monday, October 24, 2022

  I went up Kukuna and turned onto Punawele on my morning walk. My leg was doing well. I called Jackie to say I was in her neighborhood if she wanted to join me. She said she had her jeans on but was in her pajama top. She would throw on some clothes and join me. I saw her down the block, but she was facing away from me. I called her to say I was coming up from the other side. I was wearing a pink sweatshirt. She saw me and walked my way. These are long blocks; think crosstown blocks in Manhattan. We walked down the street together. She said she got her exercise walk walking toward me and now was getting her social walk. I learned she had Covid and was losing hair by the handfuls now. She was going to consult her doctor. I'd been losing hair, too. I was constantly dusting stray hairs off my keyboard. Randee, my hairdresser, confirmed my hair was thinner. Fortunately, I started with a lot. I hoped the increased loss resulted from stress: my total hip replacement, thoughts of having my five teeth extracted, the three-month wait before I can get my replacements, and a fresh infusion of grief over Mike's death. I would recover from all three and regain my equilibrium.

   I had two tutoring appointments today. My first was with adolescent D. I made a small change in the work. Instead of just saying each sound, I had him repeat what I said- sound by sound. I reinforced them by extending a finger for each one. Linda Mood-Bell uses something like that. It helped somewhat. While he didn't try to attach the first sound of the word at the end of the sequence, he had problems holding on to the sounds. He would change the sounds as he blended them. Also, he couldn't hear the difference between the sibilants/s/, /z/, /sh/. /ch/, /f/, and /v/. They can be difficult to tell apart. I tried this process with another child because I wondered if the problem was hearing them on Zoom. They had no problems identifying the sound. D has trouble even hearing that I made a sound, any sound.  

   I asked his mother if a hearing test was part of his evaluation for his special education evaluation administered by the school. Yes, it was. I suspected the school nurse administered the test; an audiologist's test is more complete. I will have to check again if he really can't hear any sound versus if he can't identify the speech sound.

   We had a full half hour today, not our ten-minute drill on phonemic awareness. I reviewed the long and short vowels using a vowel chart. D had to give the keyword and make the vowel sound. I had him review it, saying the keyword and vowel sound while looking at the chart. Then I covered it, and he had to remember. I asked him if he used forced recall to study. Nope. Many students think that just looking at the material is studying. They need to learn how to study. I told D there was no way I could have passed tests in school if I had studied the way he had. Few people have ideographic memories and only have to see something once to remember it. I'm not one of those people.

   I called Paulette to see if she was home so Elsa and I could visit and get water. Her phone went to voice mail immediately. I figured she was on the phone and would be home. I headed up there. She wasn't home. I knew where she kept a few mice on tap for Elsa; they were on one of the ladder steps in the garage. I found one and threw it to her. I didn't want her visit to be a total bust. I left my empty bottles there and went back home.

  I had the M & W sisters in the afternoon. It was a continuation of what we have been doing. I love the work with sixth grade W because we have to analyze what the author did and how they used language to communicate the information. 

  W showed me something else she had drawn. It was an abstract piece all in black against the paper's white background. It was too small for me to make sense of it. She told me it contained malformed shapes, circles, squares, ovals, and triangles. You had to find as many of the shapes as you could. Holy cow! This kid is something else.

  I spoke to her father yesterday. They had a parent-teacher conference at W's high-end private school. Her teachers said she was doing well. She was getting As and Bs. Their only concern was that she was a perfectionist. She wanted to redo it if she didn't get a good grade. I talked to W about this. "I'm not a perfectionist. I just want to get the best grade I can." I heard she was competitive, not compulsively perfectionistic.