Thursday, September 28, 2023

 Thursday, September 28, 2023

  I was dozing on and off one night when I heard the doggy door flap. My first thought was the rats had found it. I waited, hoping it was Elsa. Yes, indeed. A few minutes later, the door flapped again, and then Elsa climbed back on the bed. I had proof positive Elsa knew how to use the doggy door. There hadn't been an accident in weeks.

   I went to the Ula Wini Community Center yesterday. It was my second time there. I was expecting to be flooded by kids asking for help. Nope. One little girl told me she had worked with me once already; she didn't need more. Another little girl made a lot of progress, from the pre primer level to the low first grade.

   I finally met the girl Josephine told me about; she came to the US two years ago. Her parents had never registered her in school while living in the Marshall Islands. Josephine, the community social worker, asked how they never managed to register her in eight years. Good question. I suspect they are illiterate and too ashamed to ask for help. I thought C would be a non-reader. I was surprised by how well she read. She could recognize words on a pre-primer level. However, she had problems identifying the sounds in words. This may be a result of inexperience or an auditory processing problem.  

    Another girl was sitting across the table, watching me work with C. She asked if I could help her. L was in ninth grade and reading on a third-grade level. She understands she has problems with comprehension as well as word recognition. I did some work on decoding and promised to work with her on comprehension in our next session.

    I do Wordle every morning. My wordle statistics have improved since I switched my cue words around. Initially, I did ready, stomp, and  quick, in that order. When I put quick in the second place. It meant only one vowel letter was missing; Things improved. I frequently got the answer quickly. When I had four out of six tries, I would check Tom's Wordle Hints. If I drew a blank, I would cheat and check Tom's answer. I argue that I didn't hurt anyone by cheating, but that's not quite true. People who are heavily invested in their statistics might be hurt by my skewing the numbers. I can't say I don't care; I do, but I care more about my mood. It's a problem now.