Wednesday, June 12, 2024

 Wednesday, June 12, 2024

     I had Mama K's girls at 7:30, Which works out when they're up. Sometimes, they sleep in, and we have to do it later. I continued working on automatic processing with Twin A.

  While Twin E is good at recognizing single-syllable words, she is behind her sister at decoding multi-syllable words.  She's at the stage where I divide the words into syllables for her and push her to "read one syllable at a time." Getting poor readers to do that is a daunting task.  They're used to guessing the word since they can't decode it. They keep returning to the first syllable in hopes the penny will drop.  However, she is doing better in stating the text's main idea and supporting details. So far, everything we do is non-fiction.

  I had an appointment with Shelly, my life coach/ therapist, at 8 am. I talked about feeling shattered. There was an interpersonal bad note, the announcement about the covid restrictions being completely overblown with disastrous results, and plans to demand proof of citizenship before being allowed to vote.  That's a reasonable demand, but not if they get it in place before the upcoming election.   Sitting with my shattered innards was the most effective. The visualization that worked was allowing someone hostile toward me to 'kill me' for the purpose of love and healing. I know; I know. It sounds counterproductive. But my discovery is that when it is done for love and healing for both people, not just one, it is healing.  I saw the other person stabbing me. Then I saw shards of glass as large as coffee tables and end tables slicing through my body from back to front. It was very relaxing.  It calmed me down.

   I thanked Shelly for supporting me. There have been times when I proposed a visualization like that when she was inclined to stop me. She learned through the result that it can have benefits.   The closest I can come to figuring out how it works is we put our anger in God's hands with positive intent. This can never feel like a plan of action. That's out. It has to be a lucid dream. So far, I have never had it go wrong. It always results in benefits for all parties.   I don't know where I learned it. I don't use it often. But I've always been pleased with the results.

Judy called. She came home from her long weekend on Lana'i after visiting her son and his family. His musical production was performed while she was there, along with several birthdays.  She was debating whether to go to work or not. She didn't want to for her sake, and everyone else she might have contact with. I told her I had N95 masks she could have.  I left them in my mailbox for her to take. I found out afterward that she had chosen to stay home.  She was reluctant to do that because she's in a 90-day trial period at Target.  After it ends, she will be entitled to a pay raise and her choice of hours. Oh, well. I hope it works out.

   I got a call from a woman who said someone gave her my name. Her son just finished third grade in a private school. The school told the parents he wasn't welcome to return for fourth grade because of his problems.  They said the diagnosis was dyslexia. The parents had a formal evaluation done. The mother didn't understand the jargon.  She said something about communication skills.  It sounds to me like an audio-processing problem.  I'll see what the evaluation says and come to my own conclusions.  We made an appointment for Thursday at 4;30.

    The mother gave me her name and her nickname. I asked about the origin of her nickname. She told me she was Polish.  After I hung up, the penny dropped. She attended my church. I had observed her son. I could see something was amiss. Last Sunday, one of the parishioners spoke to me about working with the boy.  I said I thought he might be out of my range. However, the mother told me of an exchange she had with him.  She told him they would work together really hard and lick the problem. The boy told her that wouldn't work.  This means he is not cognitively impaired. A cognitively impaired person cries and says no, or more to the point, can't make such an insightful comment.

  Every day except Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday is Ulu Wini day during the summer break. I enjoy working with the kids and the staff, which is incredible, as well as the community atmosphere. These kids come from a culture where kids run loose, and everyone watches out for all the kids. I sit at a table and watch children of all ages, sometimes only with their age group, and sometimes playing or caring for children of different ages.  

 Going into third grade, PL came to me first. She wanted to work on reading. I opened Reading Roots #37. It was much too difficult for her.  I let her struggle and gave her the words when she missed them.  I did no teaching.  Next time I work with her, I will guide her through phonemic analysis- if she will stand for it. This young lady has ideas of her own.

   Next came going into sixth-grade ML. She's the one who presented me with the problem of 0-6=0 and blew my mind. I understood it from her point of view, but I also had to get her to understand 'mine,' the conventional one.  AI  explaining the -6 in terms of debt. I suspected the concept of debt would be too abstract for her, too. I needed a concrete example that would fit her experience.

    When she saw 0-6=0, she saw it from her perspective.  She went to someone and asked for six cookies.  The person said, "I don't have any."  Therefore, she walked away with none, which equals zero.  To see it conventionally, you have to picture it from the Giver's point of view. So ML asks for six cookies. The Giver says, "I have none. No, wait a minute, I have four unopened boxes in the closet." The Giver gets one box out (a ten Cuisenaire rod). She 'opens' the box, lays the ten cookies (ten units) on the table, and throws away the box (sets aside the ten bars). There are now 10 cookies on the table. Now, the Giver can give ML six cookies. How many does she have left?  The three unopened boxes in the closet (hidden under a piece of paper) and the four remaining ones after ML walked away with her six.  That seemed to make sense to ML. I'm not counting my success before they're fully hatched.

   I love doing work like this. I love being blown away by another person's way of perceiving the world and then figuring out how to communicate either my point of view or a conventional one, as I did with this math problem.

    ML continued working on division using repeated subtraction, as did going into sixth grade RM.

   I called going-on-to-second-grade KS.  I worked -again- on the sight word list. I noticed he slowed down as he reached the end of the list. I asked him if his mind felt jammed up as he read. I asked him if his head spun.  Yes!  Kids who are aware of the spin spend a lot of energy trying to slow or stop it. I showed him how to get rid of it with a spin release.  His spin went from the center out and sped up as it went.  He waited until it stopped independently, and I had him reread the list. It went more smoothly.

   I've done the spin release with children for at least thirty years and never have had a bad outcome. The closest I came was with one boy. I tried it with him in second grade; he refused to do it then. I never push anyone into doing it.  I have to trust their judgment as to what is good for them.  I worked with him again when he was in fourth grade. At that time, he still couldn't remember a word from one sentence to the next. This time, he was cooperative.  I explained the theory behind the spin to him.  He said, "Oh, I thought it meant I was crazy."  No. It doesn't mean that or, as some people prefer to believe, they're possessed by the devil.  (I have to be careful I'm not working with a child whose religious beliefs  focus on the devil.)  It means a bit of confusion got stuck in the brain.  That's it.  Our minds are constantly churning.

    I suspect they churn in circular motions just as our DNA does.  There's a resting speed and an active speed.  When we face unknown circumstances, even something at school, our brains go a bit faster, and the spin gets wider as we search our brains for something familiar.  If the spin can't be resolved satisfactorily, it stays lodged in our minds.  The spin release describes what it does; it releases the spin.  If it's not released, the person has to fight constantly to keep it under control so it doesn't interfere with perception, learning, and general comprehension of the world.  It can be bad.