Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

 

    Elaine came walking toward me. She didn’t stop today; she told me Dean and Nina were on their way. I grilled Nina on how MakesNoClaims (Intrasound) was doing. Her scars still don’t itch and continue to get paler and smaller.

     I attended a large group Zoom meeting at 9 am, where Gokhale introduced a new program. It was very disappointing. The free videos Esther usually gives include instructions. This was an infomercial for a new format to rival the elements course I had signed up for, individual sessions with a certified instructor. I can’t imagine ever doing anything like that again except with Lisa, who has proven herself a good instructor. I regretted signing up for it, particularly since I had to reschedule my reading session with twenty-six-year-old S later in the day. I had her reading in first-grade material. She missed words but did reasonably well. She had to be reminded to stick to the letters on the page and start with the vowel if she needed to decode the word.

 Judy, who observed the session, was optimistic that she would progress rapidly. Her memory is undoubtedly better than Adolescent D’s. She is also eager to follow my instructions on the off chance they will work.

       I had a luncheon date with Zola. I was late because  I didn’t hear my alarm go off. After showering, I left my phone in my robe pocket. I had gotten engrossed in writing a letter of complaint to Esther Gokhale for the disastrous lessons I got from one of her top instructors. I called Zola to warn her I would be late. She said not to worry. She was sitting in the car in the church parking lot.

     We ate lunch at Papa Kona’s. They placed us at the far end by the back stairs. I felt we had been given an undesirable spot, but there were no undesirable spots in this location. All have fantastic views of the ocean. We both had the poke. We had eaten it before her, and we both thought they had a new and improved recipe.

   I craved dessert, and Zola needed to move on. I walked down to Lava Java. There was nothing there that interested me. I was looking for a fruit pastry, and they had none.  

    When I returned to the church parking lot, I discovered the car was still running. I meant to lock my car. I had my computer in the back seat because I was heading to Ulu Wini immediately afterward to tutor. Anyone could have driven away with it and my computer.

   I got to Ulu Wini way before the kids arrived. I did a Zoom session with Adolescent D.  We just did a few words before we were both exhausted. I worked on the updates with the remaining time.

   I didn’t work with that many kids to the kids at Ulu Wini today. 

I did crossbody blending with first-grade DE and comprehension with fifth-grade M. I discovered that second-grade Mi had an auditory processing problem. She often responded with, “Huh?”  She can hear the individual phonemes but does not process words fast enough to understand what is said. I recommended that she listen to the 5-Stories audio file on YouTube.

   I had first-grade B at 5 p.m. She reread a Reading Roots story and remembered most of it. She has excellent recall.  

   We worked on decoding. I teach that vowels are the cornerstones of every syllable. The kids must know what the vowels are. I went over listing them. I teach the “I owe you” trick for remembering them. It’s the one I used as a child. B said, “I owe you a peanut butter sandwich for all your hard work with me.”  Wow! How’s that for awareness. The irony is I didn’t feel I grasped her problem yet. It was somewhat obscured because we were working on the reading selections from her reading teacher, which Judy and I felt were way above first-grade level despite being labeled as first-grade material.

    I asked B if she wanted to know what made vowels different from consonants. Yes, vowels come out of the big hollowed-out caves of our mouths, while consonants all have a block. 

   Later in the evening, I called Zola and offered to work with her on her Gokhale foot exercises. She complained about knee pain over lunch. While waiting to be seated,  I showed her a Gokhale foot exercise. It was benign; it might help but would do no harm. I was shocked at the state of her feet. She didn’t even have the strength to curl her toes. Her arches were flat. Her proposed solution was to move less, not more. She’d be in big trouble soon.

   When I plugged in my car at home, it wouldn’t charge. That was alarming. Had the charging problem reoccurred. Fortunately, I thought to check the connection. Sure enough, somehow, the extension cord was unplugged. It wasn’t Yvette; it must have been the puppies who accidentally pulled it out.