Tuesday, October 22, 2024

 Tuesday, October 22, 2024

      Elsa didn't come to bed right away when I went to sleep. She wasn't in bed when I woke in the middle of the night. I was too tired to look for her and bring her to bed. She wasn't there when I woke up in the morning. That was a surprise. I have no idea why she behaved that way. Was she mad because I bathed her yesterday? I used to bathe her every other day until the groomer at Petco said," Don't do that. You strip away all her natural protection."  I had followed the vet's advice.  Things have improved 80% since I started following the groomer's advice.  

     I got up well before 5 a.m. and sat down to write how my work is evidence-based.  My therapist's comment that she couldn't recommend me because my work wasn't evidence-based was a shock.  Of course, I tell her how I'm different from others. But that doesn't mean my work isn't evidence-based. My work may be more rooted in scientific evidence than the methods the schools use.

   The methods used by the schools are developed, researched, and promoted by the publishing companies. They get to sell another package, which costs $1000 per year per student. The method I use requires NO new material. Try and sell that. Evidence-based research done by independent researchers proves that phonemic awareness, not phonics per se, predicts reading ability. More evidence supports my method than the ones promoted by the publishing houses.  

    I wrote for about an hour before my alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. 

    I ran into Dean and Nina this morning. They had a dozen tiny eggs for me. I needed three to equal one. They're being laid by their new batch of hens, just reaching maturity. Dean said their older chickens are laying no more. They go through menopause, too.

    I spent most of the day writing and pouring boiling water on weeds.  Yesterday, I pruned some of the shrubs with my handing electric hedge trimmer.  I also called Eli and told him I wanted to work on planting shrubs in the mulched area.  I have to figure out how many I will need and plot where they will be planted.  I will also need to buy sprinkler hoses and set them up to water the plants daily when it doesn't rain.

    We have been having more rain than usual. Climate change is affecting us in a positive way so far.

   I met with sixth-grade RH. She used a cover screen, like Adolescent D used to, so I couldn't see her face. If that makes her comfortable, I'm good with it. 

    Her mother sent me a copy of her evaluation.  She did very poorly on orthographic fluency and decoding pseudo words.  As I understand it, it means being able to identify phonics patterns.  I started her on The Phonics Discovery System approach. She does or did have some problems identifying the phonemic sounds.  She was thinking top down.  I told her I thought she learned to read the way it did by identifying the little words in the big words.   I didn't use phonics, meaning identifying the letters that represented the phonemes and the phonemes that represented the sounds. She was a little nervous initially, but I consider it a fun game. I think she picked up on that attitude. As I go along, I mark the syllable pattern.  The other day, I worked on the b/d confusion but didn't do anything with it today.  I need to do a brief review each session. Correcting those problems takes drill.

   The twins were available immediately after my session with RH.  They're not doing much on their own. I instructed them to work together to master visual perception.   They may be doing something individually but not together. I can't get them to see it as a game.  They can use any written material. 

   One Twin selects a word and embeds it in the visual working memory. They hand the book to the other twin, pointing out the chosen word. The second twin looks at the word while the first one spells the word. Then the second twin asks, "What is the first letter? The second? The third? etc." I encourage them to pick a word of at least four letters, preferably words of six or seven letters.  The second twin follows up by asking her to first to name the letters out of order. "What's the third letter?" etc.  Then, the second twin selects the word. They seem to be doing surprisingly well. Twin E reports a significant change in her reading. Twin A does not. Twin A was already reading small words fluently.  Her problem is with longer words.  She ignores the letters. She says the words look like something other than what they are.