Sunday, June 2, 2024

 Sunday, June 2, 2024

   A friend responded with horror the other day when I told her Elsa would have to wear an Elizabethan collar for two weeks to prevent her from rubbing her jaw against something. Doing so could pull out the sutures or get dirt in the wound.  She said she never put it on her dogs, no matter what the vet said.  Elsa doesn't look that uncomfortable with it. It took her a day or so to adapt, but after that, it was fine. Not only did she look okay, she didn't run away when I put it on her. I took it off when we went for a walk so she could freely smell the ground to find the perfect spot to pee or poop. When it came time to put it back on, she came and stood still while I slipped it over her head.  

 When I parked in the church parking lot on Friday across the street from my Hula class, I saw a crew laying new macadam. All the grassy parking spots were being paved. Those spots were still not available for parking today.  A good quarter of the church parking spots were unavailable.  I was there early enough and found a spot at the back of the church. 

   I kept falling asleep during mass today, even though I wasn't tired when I arrived. I think the problem is psychological. I often fall asleep when I meditate; it's a common problem for meditators. The sleep feels different from the way it usually does. I once had a meditation leader comment on my sleep. He made it sound like a particular spiritual experience. I don't know; I do know I like the feeling, even if it is embarrassing in church. Today, I felt downright narcoleptic. 

      I was going home right after church to sleep, but then had enough energy to stop off at the transfer station to dump the accumulated cardboard, including the giant box the new lawnmower came in.

  While hanging up my clothes after church, my eye fell on the basket where I kept the programs from Mike's funeral. The earphones I'd misplaced at least a month ago hung on the edge of the basket. I knew they had to be somewhere in the house. I checked that area when I lost them, but not that spot. I figured they'd show up eventually.

 I had a session with third-grade M. We hadn't met in the last two weeks. She wanted to continue working on Stuart Little. Kindle holds the place for me.  We were in the middle of a chapter, and I couldn't remember much about it.  She remembered more than I did. It's the chapter where Stuart decides to go out into the world to look for Margalo, the bird. His first stop is Dr. Carey's office. He was the dentist who owned the model sloop Stuart sailed in the Central Park pond. 

   The work did not feel particularly productive. There were a few moments where I could have moved the needle forward. Today, I showed M how to skim for information. I used the trick my niece Shivani taught me: read a paragraph's first and last sentences. In today's case, the sentence that explicitly held the information didn't appear in the first and last sentences of several paragraphs. However, the first sentence of the following paragraph referred to the doctor. That suggested we go back and check the preceding paragraph.  Indeed, that's where the critical information was.

   My work with her had not substantially contributed to her improved reading for quite a while. She must be securely on grade level, if not above. I hung on because I thought she still needed the emotional support. Her father told me how much more confident M was after working with me. He credits me with the change. I know I have that impact on the kids I work with. It's reasonable to assume I made a substantial contribution to her well-being. In today's session, she was subdued but not overly withdrawn.  I asked her a while ago if she wanted to continue the session with me. She said yes. Maybe I should make a point of asking her regularly. If she says no, I'll check with her dad and mom to see if they would prefer I continue. 

  I had Adolescent D half an hour later.  I was concentrating on decoding skills. He has to tell me where to divide the written word into syllables and phonemes. For a while, we worked on third-grade-level material.  When I asked him if he saw improvement, he said no. He always says no, even when everyone else sees gains. But I thought about it. He was doing well with the third-grade material. However, these were mostly single-syllable words. Since he was doing well at this level, it was time to up the ante. I found a fourth-grade passage with a good number of multisyllabic words. Whoa! This was a whole different game.

       I was optimistic this would make a significant difference to his reading. D remained skeptical, but he always has been.  Me? I was very excited about the work. Many errors showed up when decoding multisyllabic words. That was great. The work was a challenge for him. It also clearly revealed all the problems he was still having. Here was a surprise.  He didn't recognize that the vowel sound was separate from the following letters. What!!?? I think he's confusing the need to memorize the vowel patterns as a unit, with the vowel being a separate sound for the following consonant. Hopefully, this work will make the difference clear. It's an important distinction when decoding. If you have the vowel unit securely memorized, you don't need to decode it. But if you don't have it securely memorized, you must identify each phoneme before blending the word.