Wednesday, October 19, 2022

 Wednesday, October 19, 2022

     My ankle continued to bother me; I still got close to 4,000 steps on my first walk of the morning.

     After pouring a teakettle of boiling water over the haole koa stump left after I cut down a twenty-foot tree, I checked on the shorter haole koas I first tried the boiling water trick on. I saw something green growing at the base of one of the trees. Oh, no. Was my experiment a failure? I boiled another pot and poured it over. Then, I cut back the remaining stems and pulled up all the surrounding weeds to see what was growing there. Ah, it wasn't new haole koa shoots. My experiment was still proving effective.

 I had a 10:30 appointment with my chiropractor. For some reason I will never understand. I set my alarm for a 10:30 departure. I called her office as I was driving to town- no answer. Lisa is a very relaxed person. I was there half an hour before she served me the first time I was there. She combed her hair and searched for a syringe to administer insulin to her diabetic dog while I waited.

   When I arrived at her office today, I was late, and her 11:15 had already arrived. It was just as well that I missed my appointment. She was too busy in the morning caring for her animal children, Flo the dog, and several fish. We made another appointment for 4:15. I was available because ninth-grade K had canceled for the day.

  I went to the bank to deposit a monthly check from one of my clients. There were unmatched chairs and a sofa set up along the line. There was a sign, "Please, be patient. We're working as fast as we can."  

  I stopped at Long's for Hersey milk chocolate nuggets with whole almonds. It was on sale. Yay! I bought four. Then I went to Costco. I hadn't been there in a while, at least a month. I had enough food in the house but needed more frozen veggies. They didn't have any broccoli in stock. That was okay. I had several heads of romaine lettuce to work my way through and ten Compari tomatoes to eat before they went bad.

  I was home by 2 p.m. for an appointment with adolescent D. I started with a story of a 19-year-old's fentanyl death. He had never heard of the drug. I warned him never to take a pill from a friend or stranger. If the formula is off, it could kill him.

  I asked him if he told his mother that he would do a short session every day so we could work on his phonemic awareness. He didn't remember. We had spent a long time talking about making choices. I asked if he remembered that he liked figuring out the words from the sounds. He said yes. It sounds like he's the sort that remembers what pleases him and forgets what does not. After reviewing them on a chart, he was slightly better at naming the short and long vowels.

  We also worked on identifying syllable patterns using the six types identified by Noah Webster. I assumed someone involved with Orton Gillingham identified the six syllable types. It was probably someone with that background who brought it to the attention of reading teachers. As I apply this principle to every word, I find endless exceptions. There are more than six syllable patterns. However, learning these six is a good base. They are the most common. I was working with natural language instead of a prepared word list that conforms to some rules. Adolescent D says he likes this work. On a rate of 1-10, he gave it a six. Wow!

   I told him I spoke to his mom about the extra time. Did he remember he agreed upon it in our last session? No. Had he changed his mind? No. It was okay. I want to keep Monday and Wednesday to work on the vowel sounds and syllable identification and have fifteen-minute sessions every other day of the week to work on identifying words from the phonemes. I say each phoneme separately, and he recognizes the word. His mother had suggested extending our sessions by adding time to our existing sessions. I think short and frequent sessions are better.

   I told D and his mom I wanted to do it daily now because I probably wouldn't be able to after the 27th. I will be having five teeth extracted. It will affect my ability to make the sounds clearly.

  I had Mama K's crew next, starting with Twin A. She was sitting in the car using a phone instead of an iPad. She was falling asleep as we worked. I asked if she had had a rough day in school. She hadn't gone. Why? There was no bus this morning. Our schools still need help finding bus drivers. Parents drive their kids to school. It's a big mess. The line of cars at the beginning and end of school is not to be believed. Nor is the traffic that affects the rest of us.

  Despite her exhaustion, Twin A struggled and completed a unit of work. This would be my last day training the girls to use Starfall. I am confident they can use it for their benefit.

 I worked with Twin E on identifying words from the phonemic units. She had trouble with the sibilants, /s/,/f/, /z/, etc. She did pretty well reading the material from the Starfall selections and directing me to manipulate the site. Both girls are ready to do Starfall on their own.

   When I spoke to Mama K the other day, she said she wasn't seeing much improvement in K's understanding. She cited his not following instructions and washing his dishes as an example of his problems understanding what is said. I asked if that was a problem with understanding or willingness. She hadn't thought of that. She rules with an iron hand. The kids don't seem to suffer. I tested K on identifying the word from hearing the individual phonemes. He had trouble with the sibilants, too. I made sure he could see my face. He couldn't see a difference between the facial formations of/s/ and /f/. The difference is radical. His phonemic awareness may be a problem, even though his decoding and word recognition skills are good. I told Mama K to play the audio file for him at night again. This helped him overcome a serious speech problem.

  I also texted to see how well K could repeat a sentence without seeing it written. He did pretty well. In the next session, I will test his recall by asking in-the-book questions on material we have already covered.

  I left shortly after three to return to the chiropractor. I arrived early. It was rush hour, and I didn't want to risk missing another appointment. She was running late. She started with me at 4:40. I left at 6:40. She worked on me most of the time. She is incredibly generous with her service. She told me I was her last client for the day and she would be able to give me extra time. Most people want to get home at the end of the day, not spend extra time at work. I don't know how she makes a living. She did give me the second laser treatment for my toe fungus. Yvette cut my toenails two weeks ago for the first of my two laser appointments. Lisa said I should cut them closer. She cut my nails for me. Again, incredible.

   I got home to an anxious Elsa. I fed her immediately rather than forcing her to walk first—poor baby.