Preparing to be Thankful

Three pie crusts, apple pie filling, and a mashed potato casserole all went into the freezer today for Thanksgiving. I also seasoned and toasted crumbs for the stuffing. I'm hoping to keep next week from being so crazy! I'd like to keep up with math and reading through next week; in the past, I've enjoyed taking Thanksgiving week off from homeschooling, but then it's so hard to get going again!

Singing in the Rain

My little guys are out playing in the rain. Well, not an all-out downpour, it is more of a mist. My inspiration came from the occupational therapist we saw Monday. She suggested giving Samuel times where he can play with something that mushes.

Some time ago, to save my garden beds and pots, I filled up a long container with sand and the little guys are allowed to play in that. Well, that meets my definition of mushy. With everything already wet, I would not normally have had them go outside today. But if it helps Samuel, why not?

We are supposed to get full showers, and even thunderstorms later, so I finished most of school this morning, gave the boys an early lunch, then sent them out back. A good session of playing in the sand, and running up and down the yard with their trucks, should burn off some of their boundless energy and their desire to get into "stuff."

Besides, they need a bath this afternoon anyway.

Talking to Himself?

Samuel's speech teacher is considering putting him by himself while she works with him. I understand her dilemma: if  he is too much of a distraction, the other kids can't benefit from her sessions. But, if he's in with other kids, she can assist with peer interactions.  I told her I'd support whatever decision she makes -- I understand Samuel can be quite demanding and trust her to do right by all the kids involved.

A New Start

Samuel's new occupational therapy sessions look so promising! He had such fun rolling, climbing, throwing, and balancing. Best of all, the therapist is very in tune with what he needs for speech, gently correcting and encouraging him to use the right phrases and sentence structures.

I'm appreciating that Samuel likes to be challenged -- he becomes so enthusiastic, grinning and really concentrating on the situation. It's infectious! I found myself with an ear-to-ear smile just watching. Already, I can see some adaptations we can make during school -- something as simple as flopping down on our bellies to read will work his shoulder and core muscles.

We are hugely blessed to have so many good medical resources around us. I'd dearly love to live out in the middle of nowhere. But living here means my baby gets what he needs!

Samuel's No Organization Man

Everything gets scheduled on Mondays and Wednesdays! We will start occupational therapy today (Monday) which is also one of Samuel's speech therapy days. Yesterday, the fella who has offered to teach Samuel piano offered to do so, you guessed it, on Mondays.

Meanwhile, I'm finding it hard to get any regular school work done. In the past, our family has successfully used a four -day week schedule from time to tine in the younger grades. But I'd still have to deal with Wednesdays when Samuel has speech, and in the afternoons, both boys have an excellent opportunity to get together with other kids.

I guess the most telling question will be whether or not Samuel progresses in his academic skills this school year. In my viewpoint, reading is the most critical skill to develop now, and he's making great progress there. Same with the broad "language arts" of spelling and developing ideas. Secondarily, a good foundation in numeracy needs to be developed, and that's coming along too.

Usually we've developed more of a routine by this point in the school year. Sometimes we just have to keep on keeping on. I crave more organization!

It's in the Numbers

Day four of potty training, three rounds of laundry, two relatively happy boys, and one frazzled Mama! This has got to work! I think I can, I think I can. Toot, toot .... sigh.

Going Dotty

What Samuel does or says can seem odd, until closer examination shows a logical, but unexpected approach. In math yesterday, Samuel needed to add the numbers presented by the face of dice. Two dots plus one dot equals three dots, etc.

Well he insisted on drawing the dots in the answer block rather than the numeral. When I realized he wanted to put the correct number, it dawned on me that he was trying to answer in kind. If the problem is given in dots, it makes logical sense to answer in dots. What an interesting little mind to see developing!

Success?

Samuel is the proud owner of a new radio-controlled Thomas the Tank Engine. He started out yesterday with a big T-shirt on and nothing else and went went into total meltdown mode. When he mentioned a new engine (while scripting dialog from a video) an idea flashed through my head. Put regular underwear on him and promise his choice of Thomas gear if he has no "accidents" before his Dad gets home from work.

He made it! While we resorted to training underwear overnight (and as it turned out, for good reason), Samuel has been wearing regular skivvies all day with no problem. His younger brother, meanwhile, is tagging along for the adventure. While he's had a few more mishaps, he's doing very well.

I can't claim success yet. But something tells me we are on our way. So often when Samuel is ready for a new skill, he just blooms when he succeeds. Over the last two days, I've seen that smile often!

Big Change

OK, let's see how this goes. Samuel has demonstrated for a while now that he can use the toilet. He just chooses not to. So, deep breath, I've put one of my T-shirts on him for privacy, and am leaving him without his "training" underwear. When I tried, about a year ago, to simply put regular underwear on him, he simply went in his pants anyway. So far today, hysterics. Deep breath ... OK, we can do this.

Getting the Basics

I recently saw a statistic that saddened me: about 50 percent of the people in Pakistan are illiterate. In my mind, that's a greater loss than missing the daily newspaper -- it means those folks are likely locked in their position in life. If you can read, and have at least some access to materials, you can teach yourself anything. You can form your own opinions about the events around you. Ideas and concepts far beyond your own village are within your grasp.

Sometimes teaching Samuel seems like an overwhelming task. But at this stage in life, it doesn't need to be complicated. The little fella needs to be able to read, write, and figure. If he gets that, particularly the reading, he will have the potential for a lifetime of learning.

At this point, I'd have to say that he is most limited by his fine motor skills -- Samuel often tries to sneak his other hand across onto the pencil when he's trying to write. But the very basic skills are developing and he will soon start occupational therapy to enhance those abilities. His reading is coming along rapidly. What a joy it is to see my boys love books and magazines as much as I do. Samuel's math is likely very appropriate for his age: he can count into the hundreds, recognizes patterns, and is getting the basic concerpts of addition and subtraction.

Samuel is truly learning to read, write, and figure. What a blessing!

When Past is Present

"I shucked the corn." Hmmmm, I looked around at the pile of special blankets and stuffed animals that accompany our morning snuggle and couldn't for the life of me figure out what Samuel was talking about. "Then we cooked it and ate it."

Ah ha! He was thinking of last summer and revisiting our going to the farmers market, buying fresh corn, then coming home to prepare it. We've had to puzzle over these jumps in time before.

I'm not sure what to make of memories coming out as current. When we're reading, we may be paragraphs further along when Samuel asks about a particular word. That leaves me scrambling to find it so I can let him examine it for a moment. That might be attributed to a slow processing time, but events from last summer clearly would be coming out of long-term memory. (And Samuel has an unbelievable memory!)

Is it possibly a typical behavior for a six-year-old? I recall his older brother doing something somewhat similar, but thought then that it was his way of dealing with an extraordinarily sad event in his life.

For now, perhaps it doesn't matter. It's Samuel being Samuel. But I do try to understand what's going on with him!

Help With Reading

We have someone who can help us with teaching questions. This was what we e-mailed about this week regarding Samuel's reading:

My question:


I am hoping you can help me with a question regarding Samuel's reading.

Is it possible for his reading level to outpace his underlying skills? He is doing so well in both reading and spelling, but gets impatient with me when I show him phonics. (I teach this within the context of reading -- never as a stand-alone "rules" exercise.) I guess my concern stems from seeing his language skills surge forward, then regress at times. Also, as we worked with Samuel's older brother, if he went as fast as he wanted, he didn't always have a foundation in the fundamentals (more a problem in math than reading). Too, with Samuel's personality, he usually wants to understand how something "works," and could end up horribly frustrated not knowing "why".

Most days, Samuel reads to me from a variety of materials such as story books or age-appropriate nature magazines; I read to him from a full length book that is well beyond his reading level; and he has some quiet, independent reading time. We also work some classics into the mix, Three Little Pigs, etc.

He does seem to recognize a lot of the principles -- he saw the brand Nike the other day, and following the typical rules, gave it a long I and a silent E. I've also heard him try to figure a word's spelling by saying it and applying what he knows to try to come up with the correct letters. He has absorbed end-of-line hyphenation and using an apostrophe and S for possession from our book reading.

I don't want to bore him, but I don't want a house of cards crumbling down in a few years when he'll need to be picking up more of his information by his own reading.

The Teacher's Response:

It is indeed possible that his ability to read words (word call) exceeds the underlying skills.  In fact, it is not uncommon for children who are on the spectrum to have exceptional oral reading and spelling abilities.  It typically indicates very strong visual memory skills.  The comprehension piece is often more difficult.
 
My sense is that he will continue to be a strong visual speller and reader.  It may not be critical to teach phonics, at least not to a large extent.  It may also make more sense to teach them later, especially if you start to see a gap between his ability spell and read the same word.  You may want to take a sight word approach--being able to read it, spell it, define it, use it in a sentence.   At his age, a quick draw of a word is also a good tool.
 
Instead of a lot of time spent on basic phonics, I would suggest that you teach prescriptively--teaching the rule, etc. when you see an error, and then consider building the comprehension piece.  Retelling the events of a story in terms of first, next, then, and last is important.  Also naming/detailing characters and setting.  You may also want to directly teach inferences, predictions, categories, similarities/differences, and compare/contrast.  (I have a series that teaches these critical thinking skills that I am happy to share.  It's called Think Spots.)  These are comprehension building blocks.  Just like I see spectrum students excel with their oral reading, these components often trip them up as they move on to more advanced text and/or reading assessments such as the DRA. 
 
It sounds as though he is doing very well.   

I've been having trouble saving or posting anything ... if this will post, I'll wait until my technical guru gets home this evening. Samuel is at his whiny worst at the moment and my brain is blanked.

Phone-y Elections

We have elections tomorrow, and we've been "thanked" for our political support by being placed on every calling list in the Western Hemisphere. (OK, so I exaggerate. A little.) Although we are on the national do-not-call list, that service does not block political calls, even the recorded ones placed by auto-dialers.

This makes homeschooling very difficult, especially for a child like Samuel who is very easily distracted. In a typical school day, we alternate between periods of work and play. The boys play for a while, then I gather them back in for our next lesson. Today, we had just settled down for reading -- I finally had their attention and involvement in the story -- and the phone rings. This has been going on for weeks.

Arg!