Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

    

 I had some excitement right before I went to bed.  I was full of energy and up at 10:30, a rare event.  I coincidently checked my text messages as I took my vitamins. Josh sent a message that someone’s taillights were on.  I checked the driveway and saw it was Joseph’s car.  His bedroom lights had been out for a while. I tapped on his door but got no response. I went outside to see if I could turn the lights off, but the car doors were locked. I went back inside and banged on his door. 

 He got dressed and came out. He tried several things; none worked. He looked up the problem on the Internet. When just the taillights are on, the brake pedal is faulty. He recognized that it felt lower than it usually did. The YouTube video said there was an easy fix. In the meantime, his lights would be on all night, which might drain his battery.

 I recommended he move his car out to the street instead of behind mine in the driveway. That way, I could drive him to work if his battery was dead in the morning. I set my alarm for  6 am. Joseph usually left around 6:15.

 When I heard him up, I told him I was awake. He said he would try his car first and text me if it was okay. Lo and behold, his car started. 

 I texted him information on garages to use. Yvette highly recommended JAWS in the old industrial area.  Judy had information on a mechanic who came to your home. He was much cheaper than one who maintained a full garage. The mechanic had changed the brakes on Adam’s truck and done a good job. Joseph fixed the problem on his own. He found information on a gadget that provided an easy fix.

 I slept well after going to bed at 11:30. Elsa and I went for our morning walk. When I returned, I did my morning puzzles and gardening and took a two-hour nap. 

 I had the Twins at 1:30.  Twin E put in effort; Twin A fell asleep.  I figured out that Twin A wants to quit because she’s suffering from freeze-brain. She goes blank when she doesn’t understand something.  I told her mother to praise Twin E. I knew Mama K had been a special ed student.  I asked her if she experienced her mind going blank when in school. Yes. I told her it’s fear-driven.  I should ask her to share her experience with Twin A to encourage her to stick with it.  I thanked Mama K for her support. She thanked me.  I also learned that Twin A was testing on a 5th-grade level in reading.  Her comprehension is much better. She will be stumped by her problems decoding multi-syllable words. 

 Both girls show an interesting delay in their development. They read the final -ed ending as /id/ on all words in the past tense, like /talk-id/; they did not do that when speaking. They had continuing problems ignoring final suffixes, including the final -s but not the final -ing. I wondered about the cause of this problem.  I chose to ignore it and see it as a manifestation of overregularization, a normal stage in speech development in seven-year-olds. It’s the stage when children discover there are rules governing behavior, and, boy, do they make sure you follow them.

 I had fifth-grade GV next. We started working on the rough draft of a story he generated a while ago.  I didn’t like how it turned out and wanted to drop it. He didn’t have enough information for me to create a coherent piece.

 We ran the piece as it was through Grammarly. GV suggested we run it through Copilot, which we did. It made a suggestion, which GV used to revise the text. Wow! 

 Then, we worked on reading a sixth-grade selection from IXL. He struggled with decoding the multisyllabic words, but he stuck with it. I asked him if he was doing better in school when the teacher introduced unfamiliar material. He said yes. 

 I worked with fourth-grade LG. We ran the story he wrote about building a gaming PC through Grammarly. I asked him if his teacher knew how good he was at building things. No. But he had a friend in his class who was into building things, too. They shared information. I was surprised to learn he discovered this skill recently. I assumed he had developed it from when he was a toddler. 

 Then, we worked on spelling. Oh, boy. LG needed a brush-up in a big way. He remembered the dictated words well but had issues dividing the longer words into their syllables based on their sounds. This was disappointing, as it meant he lost ground on his decoding skills. Back to the drawing board.

 Last, I had fifth-grade ZN. Any thoughts I had of quickly solving his problems are rapidly evaporating. This poor kid is twisted into a pretzel. He rocks to soothe his anxiety. He cuts off the Zoom connection with his constant fidgeting. But worst of all, he may be passive-aggressive. He is so angry at himself and takes it out on others. That’s going to be tough for me.