Friday, July 12, 2024

 Friday, July 12, 2024

   When I checked Elsa this morning, the skin on her belly looked less inflamed.; it wasn't quite as red. I eliminated the Royal Canin hydrolyzed food from her diet and was feeding her only Dr. Marty's.  When I had her on the Royal Canin Ultamino and Dr. Larry's combination, her skin stayed clear. Was the recent outbreak caused by the change in food, the aftereffects of the dental procedure where they pulled ten teeth, the anesthesia, or some environmental factor triggering her allegories? I'm only giving her Dr. Marty's to see what happens.

   I left for the Hulu class at 9:30. The community center parking lot looked empty.  I found the doors locked. I had something wrong. I texted Elaine, who told me about the class in the first place. She said the class was moved to the pavilion at Old A for two or three sessions because something else was scheduled for the community center. I missed the initial class, which included registering and introducing a new dance. They had already met for several sessions when I joined the last session. I was way behind the rest of the class I hoped to be in from the beginning and see if that made the class more comfortable for me.

  I stopped off at Costco on the way home from Hulu.  They were out of vinegar, not a single case left. That happens here. There's no such thing as calling the company and getting an overnight shipment.  Everything has to come here by boat or airplane. Boat takes three weeks. Airfreight is fast but oh so expensive.  Often, the shelves are bare. Grab what you can while you can.

I didn't have the twins today. They were on an overnight with friends.  Mama K never called to reschedule appointments for later in the day. 

  Adolescent D's decoding gets better and better. He moves ahead at a good clip, asks some interesting questions about how a word should be divided, looks for patterns, and remembers rules. Overall fantastic. I have had him read the whole passage after he decodes it. Today, I was inspired to ask him if he read the words as he decoded them. "No." Wow! Holy cow!! Jumping Jehoshaphat!!! And you've got to be kidding me!!! I can't stop myself from reading words. I don't know a reader that can. I find this a behavior among delayed readers. They don't even try to process words they see, even familiar ones, no less figure out the ones they don't know. What to do about that?

   I've seen D make so much progress on the exercise. I have seen his reading accuracy and speed improve when he reads the paragraph after decoding it. It may have been the best thing to separate the two activities. With decoding, he is looking for patterns he can discern visually. This allows him to concentrate on it without bringing in the auditory processing he needs to actually read the words.  Today, I had him read every word as he decoded it. (Decoding means he marked the syllable divisions with a slash and the letters representing phonemes with dashes.)  Because it was so slow, it was more like reading a list of words. He couldn't use context clues to help him figure out the word. I'm excited by the possibility. Could I get him to the point where he is a fluent reader? That's my goal.

 I cleaned my refrigerator today in anticipation of Damon's arrival. He says he doesn't care if the house is clean, but one year, he shocked me when he opened my refrigerator and said he was going to clean it after I had labored for hours on it. I had been so proud of the job that his contemptuous statement rocked me badly.

   I had going-into-fourth-grade LG at the end of the day.  We missed our session on Wednesday because his mom forgot. She sent me a long text apologizing.  She had a closed head injury from a motorcycle accident.  I'm good with mishaps as long as people show me respect. Stuff happens. 

   LG's mom texted that they had bought him a wood-burning kit, and he had read the directions. This is a boy who wasn't reading road signs. He was one of those quick fixes. They are always fun. Now we're one to bigger and better issues. He has to master decoding multi-syllable words and comprehension.

  I discovered today he doesn't decode sentences. There were two references to weight: 3 lbs and 7 lbs. He couldn't figure out what the two referred to. He looked at isolated words instead of seeing them embedded in other words. Each sentence is like a jigsaw puzzle piece. I started him on WbyW, a process using questions that duplicate sentence diagramming.  

Yvette came up for dinner again tonight. It was delightful. I hope we can continue this once Josh comes home.