Wednesday, April 9, 2025

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

 

 I had the fifth-grade Twins today after missing them on Saturday. Mama K explained that she and Papa K had been paddling on Saturday. Their older daughter  SR had been on an overnight. No one was home, and the Twins had to accompany their parents.

   I worked with Twin E first.  In our last session, she started writing a piece about the game Four Way Capture the Ball. I pulled more information out of her today. She drew a picture of the field, a square divided into four squares. Each team owned one of the squares. Each team has six members: three for offense, two for defense, and one to guard the  'prisoners,' members of the opposing teams.  While her drawing was informative, her verbal descriptions weren't.  We still have more work.

   Twin A's biggest weakness is decoding multisyllabic words. Where in the past, she fell asleep from anxiety when I worked on the structured steps for decoding, she remained bright-eyed and bushy-tailed today. This is a great change.

    At 3:00, I had fifth-grade GV. His mom brought his report card and the results of his dad's consultation with his teachers. They praised his improvement over the last term, especially in his comprehension. However, his teachers still felt he performed at a 4th-grade level. They didn't specify at what level of fourth grade. Performance scores are by year and month. There's a difference between the beginning of fourth grade and the end. 

 GV's teachers were more concerned about his performance in math. He was missing the basics.  GV wanted to work on decimals.  I don't know how it came out, but he had problems adding problems with more than three digits.  I wrote an addition problem with two numbers in the one's place. Easy peasy. Then I added numbers in the ten's place and had him add those; then the hundreds place, the thousands place, etc, one at a time. He said that was easy, but it looked like a block of numbers when he got a problem at school. He couldn't do that. I explained he did it just as he had done the problem I had created, one column at a time. The light bulb went on.  Kids don't know how to break a problem down. 

   When GV learns, he learns deeply. He requires a period of silence while he processes the new information. He is usually the one who tells me it's time to end the session.  Today, he continued staring at the screen for a good five minutes after the session was up.  I told him he could look as long as he liked. It was me who walked away and took care of some other business, leaving him to it. He made my day.

      I finally had fourth-grade LG. His report card also suggested he needed help with basic math.  He said he had problems with subtraction.  He complained that one of his math tutors was mean. She yelled at him for using his fingers. I gave him the problem 8-5=. He held up eight fingers, lowered 5, and noted what was left. No wonder the tutor was yelling at him.  I showed him how to count up from 5 to 8 and see how many steps he took. He freaked, looked away from the screen, and then actually walked away, taking the phone with him.  He freaks whenever he's not sure of what he's doing. He said he doesn't like being wrong. Join the human race. None of us like being wrong; we must learn to live with it. We have to know that our lives are not at stake because we aren't perfect. The person who feels perfection is a basic requirement is doomed to a difficult life.  He told me his sister cries every time she gets something wrong.

   I reminded LG he didn't feel that way when he built his computer. He was not only confident but thought nothing about making mistakes and trying again. To be good at anything, you have to feel that way. The path to success is built on mistakes. You can tell if someone is good at something when they are comfortable with their mistakes. 

    I instructed him to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth, anchor himself to his seat, and keep his eyes on the screen while I demonstrated the process of subtracting by counting up from the lower number; he didn't have to do anything but watch. The 'mean' tutor had been trying to teach him this. She got frustrated with his lack of cooperation. I have the advantage because I address his psychological condition directly, which most teachers are not comfortable doing. Everything is dealt with as a behavior problem. He did as I instructed, stayed calm, and watched. Then he got it. He said, "That's neat!" Done!  

   I had him read a short passage at the end of the session. Holy cow! It's like he forgot everything. He says the school has him in a reading group where he has no access to reading material higher than a second-grade level. Given what I saw today, that's possible. It would be hard to know how much information is lost and how much is a result of panic.   

   I was supposed to have fifth-grade ZN at 5:15, but his mom canceled because of a medical emergency. I will meet with him tomorrow instead. 

   I called Mama K to ask about the plans for Saturday. She thought her older daughter would be home and be able to get the girls on to the Zoom meeting at 8 a.m. She told me a friend she met at Paddling planned to email me asking for tutoring for her son. When I checked, there was an email from a woman with a 10-year-old who needed a lot of help with reading and some with math. We're scheduled for this Saturday after I work with the Twins.