Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

 

 I slept soundly until midnight. Then, I fell back to sleep till 4- 4:30. I didn't get up with the alarm at 5. There was no driveway yoga today; I wasn't in a hurry. I lingered in bed unnecessarily. When I got up, I completed my Gentle Seated Yoga, my Gokhale foot exercises, twenty sit/stands, kneeling while holding on to an upholstered chair, stretching while in that position and finally getting up from the kneeling position. The goal for the last one is to get up without using my hands. I am far from that goal with either my left or right leg. What I can do now that I couldn't do is bring one leg through, so the foot is on the floor. I haven't been able to do that with ease since my early thirties when I discovered the problem doing a Salutation to the Sun sequence.  

   I made a second attempt to mow the lawn. Yesterday, I rolled the lawnmower down the driveway to see if I could keep control of it even on the steep decline. I was good to go. Today, I put in the battery but couldn't start it. I brought the battery back into the house. When I placed it in the charging dock, I found the battery was fully loaded. The battery was not the problem.

  I went to Ulu Wini today. I planned to continue working on comprehension with fifth-grade M. When I asked her if she had seen any improvement in her comprehension since our first session on comprehension, she said she not really. I asked her what the problem was. She said she had trouble reading multisyllabic words. I taught her the six-step procedure I use. I teach students to identify the sounded vowels in the word to determine the number of syllables and then to give a logical sound for every letter in the word. However, they're not to assume they will come up with the accurate pronunciation of the word. There is no way to guarantee a word will be 'correctly' decoded even if one follows all the phonics rules. We worked with the word hesitancy. The word can be decoded in three ways: he/si/ta/ncy, he/si/ tan/cy, and hes/i/tan/cy. All three decoding options represent 'correct' phonetic possibilities, while only one represents the word how it is spoken in American English. Determining what a word really is in English requires the use of context clues as well as decoding skills. Suppose the word is not part of the reader's listening vocabulary. There is no way to figure out the correct pronunciation in that case.

   I worked with third-grade S. He recited the entire alphabet without hesitation and accurately read a book at a first-grade level, decoding many of the words. When I first started with S, he couldn't recite the alphabet and couldn't read at all. His progress is amazing. Today, I worked on the fear of failure. I used the 'little you' image.  

    I evoke the 'little you,' the conscious mind, to convince the unconscious self to understand that our lives are not in danger even if we never learn to read. From the view of evolutionary psychology, we are driven to conform to the people around us. If we can't learn whatever the culture expects of us at the same rate as our peers, we fear for our lives. That's not an unreasonable fear – evolutionarily. Children who could not progress normally had to be left behind. The band of hunter/gatherers couldn't afford to carry someone who would only be a drain on the limited resources. Over the last thirty years, I have done this exercise with at least one hundred children. So far, in each case, the child recognizes that they feel more relaxed after the exercise. As I talked about that fear, S turned around in his chair and faced me directly. I had his full attention.

   Second-grade D is also reading much better. Last time, he did well with the Fry Sight Word list, but I had him reading Carpenter materials, which are pre-primer level. Today, he read on a high first-grade level.

     It had been a while since I had worked with second-grade K. She read a passage on a low third-grade level. She read slowly and deliberately but accurately.

     After I finished with the children, I talked to Josephine, the administrator of this amazing program. I volunteered at Ulu Wini many years ago when a different organization ran the program. What a difference. This group is so hands-on with all the members of the community. Josephine and at least two other women live in the community.

    I asked Josephine to let others know about my work with the children. I want others to take an interest and learn my method. I'm even impressed with the effectiveness of my methods. She said I want to leave a legacy. No, not really. I would feel terrible if someone else claimed the work, but I don't need to get a great deal of recognition. I would find that overwhelming. Josephine didn't really understand; she proposed a training program for the parents of these children. Worse than that, she explained that third-grade S's improvement was due to a change of attitude on his part; he was making an effort now where he hadn't before.  

    I'm not too fond of that comment on two counts. One, it completely denigrates my work. It says it wasn't what I taught him; he just changed his attitude. I also hate the concept of learning implicit in that comment. It says that learning is completely the responsibility of the learner. The teacher has no impact. Either the learner gets it or not. There is nothing a teacher can do. The burden on the learner is cruel. It's very 18th century. Can someone learn tennis without instruction? Can someone build a house without tools? It argues that third-grade S is doing better because he is making an effort. Before, when he made no effort, he denied both S and my work in one fled swoop. I gave S the tools to learn.

   First, I showed him that all words are made up of sound units. He watched in rapped attention as I broke down every word in a sentence into its phonemic units. In another session, I showed him how to use his brain to remember. After five 15-minute sessions, he was reading at a first-grade level. When he started, he couldn't even recite the alphabet. The other kids knew him as a non-reader and possibly considered him a special case. Today, he rattled off the alphabet, but he didn't know what the vowel letters were.

  I teach the vowel letters in the context of the whole alphabet. I write out A-Z and circle the vowel letters. The rest are consonants. S looked a little confused. I asked him if he wanted to know why the vowels were different. Yes. I explained that all the consonants (except for h) have the breath forced through a constricted passage or blocked by the lips or the tongue. In the case of the vowels, the space in the mouth is kept broad. The sound changes are from reshaping the mouth without constricting the airflow. S paid rapt attention. He may be a deep thinker, incapable of learning something unless he understands it.   

    On my way home, I stopped off at Home Depot for a thicker extension cord than I used for the car charger. B noticed the slimmer extension cord I was using was hot. I figured out that the higher the number, the thinner the cord. I needed a thicker one. I also bought a sprinkler to water the mulch.