Monday, April 7, 2025

  Monday, April 7, 2025 

  

      I’d been skipping the morning yoga stretches.  I was diligent until I decided to walk before I did the stretches instead of after. It’s harder to come home from the walk, feed Elsa, and then start the stretches. I get involved in doing my morning NY Times puzzles, and that’s it for the day.

        I had three students. I only have the Twins on Wednesdays for now. Every other afternoon, they’re paddling right after school. I could have them on Saturday mornings, but I have trouble connecting with them when no adult is around to force them to work with me. They’re in fifth grade and already young adults. As far as they’re concerned, they’re done. There was no one to push them to get on today. 

      I had fifth-grade GV first.  He decided he wanted to write another story, but we had to finish editing the last story. I had sent it to his grandmother to edit with him, but she didn’t have  Grammarly premium as I did. We decided it would be better if he did his final editing with me.  

When writing a new story, he didn’t have anything in mind. I told him to just say the first thing that came to mind. Again, he was stuck. He looked up, saw a plant hanging above him, and offered that. I told him no. It had to be something that came from his mind. There would be a story with that.  He finally came up with ‘sharks.’  

    He recalled a story about a fishing trip with his granddad and his dad, during which they caught two sharks and released them back into the water after taking a picture of one of them. I planned to use this story to cover the main idea, the narrator’s voice, inferencing, compare and contrast, cause and effect, and metaphors and similes. We completed the brainstorming stage. We have our work cut out for us.

     GV gave me some information about ZN. They’re in the same class and are friends outside of school. I told GV ZN would be interested in science. His mom told me he wanted to be a marine biologist. When I asked ZN why he wanted to be one, he told me he wanted to invent a device to clean the garbage from the ocean.  GV told me this was just something ZN told his mom. He had no interest in science or becoming a marine biologist. He wanted to be a professional gamer. I have no problem with his ambition to be a gamer. That sounded like a normal ambition for an eleven-year-old in this day and age.  I had a problem with him telling his mom a story. Why did he feel he had to put on a false front for her? I told GV that while I appreciated his information about ZN, I couldn’t talk about him. I also wouldn’t talk about GV to ZN.

     I had fourth-grade LG next.  I pushed him to work on the dictation/spelling exercise.  I was surprised in our last session to discover he’d slipped back.   He actually did quite well today. We did one exercise determining the main idea. He ran into trouble with a word and shut down.  He says he does this less in class than he used to.  He looked less panic-stricken than he had in the past. I follow the old G.E. slogan, “Progress is our most important product.” 

I asked LG what grade level he was reading at in school. He said second grade, which surprised me. I would have thought he would be at least on a third-grade level. He said he was in the same group he had always been in. Everyone was reading better. They started with very easy stories and were reading chapter books by now.  

     Finally, I talked to ZN’s mom. After our last session, when he started rocking, I felt it was vital that he had a tablet instead of just using the phone for Zoom.  I didn’t mention my conversation with GV about him. Today, ZN was calm and focused. There was no fidgeting, no less rocking. He was entirely focused. First, I drew a line illustrating where he was now in his reading and where he wanted to be. While his goal is to be on grade level, my goal is for him to be at least one grade level ahead of his current school year. This is a very bright young man. I made small marks at the bottom end, telling him we had to focus here. There may be leaps of improvement. That would be nice, but no guarantees.  I also told him Adolescent D’s story. He was evaluated at a first-grade reading level when I started working with him when he was in 8th grade. It took four years of hard work, with him fighting me every step of the way. ZN asked what D’s reading level was at the end. I told him seventh grade. I made it clear I thought our work together would take time.

      I used the Carpenter stories with him again. I pointed out the word family pattern in the story once.  He picked up on it after that.  He is very quick. He had serious problems that stood in the way of rapid progress.  The letters flip around on the page.  Most students I’ve encountered with shifting letters have it happen in their minds and not on the page. His flipping appeared on the page. I consider that a more severe condition. He had it happen twice in a short reading passage. The first time, the second and fourth letters in one word changed places.  I had tried the spin release with him once. He said it wasn’t effective. Before he did the release, he experienced spinning. Today, he said he has the same flipping but without the spinning.  This is a new one for me.  He may be making it up, but I have to assume his information is accurate until proven otherwise.  I told him to stop reading and wait until the flipping resolved. Ah. If he isn’t reading,  how does he know it is resolved? There’s something going on here. The poor kid has a right to his defensiveness. I  have to take it one step at a time.   He proposed timing his reading of the stories.  This is a good sign that this work makes him feel he is accomplishing something.

         With ZN I am teaching something closer to Glass Analysis, focusing on the word family patterns, rather than the phonemes.  His big problem is with the blending. I’ll work on what I can and go from there. 

        I habitually put off every task that doesn't require me to do it for someone else. I love writing. I love finding the words to express an idea. It's the most rewarding alone activity. Yet, I put it off, afraid I won't do a good job.  While I'm doing it, I don't worry about that. I'm completely engaged.