I had a very up & down day this week with The Adventurer. Teaching him, trying to teach him, is a huge challenge. Not surprising, given the list of ways that his brain struggles with processing new information. I've shared in earlier posts, but suffice it to say -- every way that the brain has of taking in & processing new information, is, in him, disrupted to some degree. Every single aspect of learning is affected.
I've learned, recently, that I cannot look to where he "should" be. I realized as I plotted out course options for the boys and sat down to figure out what grade The Adventurer "should" be in, if he were in school, that he would be entering 3rd grade in the fall. That was a smack in the face, a punch in the gut, as I thought of all those lovely 3rd grade books he "should be" reading, by himself, almost by now. And then thought of the up & down of the day we had yesterday, which is where he is.
We were reviewing phonograms -- the sounds letters make. I pulled out the stack of cards, and the letter tiles, and an ABC Bingo card printed with all the letters of the alphabet, capital & lowercase paired together in the same square. He still struggles to remember that each letter, each sound, is represented by 2 variations of the same letter and struggles with remembering that L is the same as l, that H is the same as h, and which b, d, p, q goes with which B, D, P, Q. He is, however, beginning to remember most letter sounds, so we're working on that and using the capital/lower case BINGO sheet as a subtle cue on those pairings.
To start, we laid out all the letter tiles, in alphabetical order. I pointed to each letter and he & I, together, said the name of each one. He can sing the song, but doesn't always remember when he sees a letter, what its name is. So we pointed and named, in order. Then we went back to the beginning and said the sounds for each one, again, as we pointed.
When I got to e & f, we had one of those "ups" that are small & infrequent & thus extra cherished: we pronounced /e/ (as in egg), and then /f/ (as in fox), and The Adventurer piped up, "/ef/!" That's the name of this one (pointed to the f), and that (pointed to e-f, together) is how you spell it!" "/ef/! just like the letter!"
"Yes! Exactly, Adventurer! You are so right!! That does spell the name of this letter, because e says /e/, and f says /f/ and together, /ef/, makes the name of the f. So cool! Great job, noticing that!!" I was excited, to say the least.
Then we continued on through the alphabet, giving the sound each letter makes, just as a quick review because mostly he knows all the sounds now. Mostly.
Then I handed him the BINGO card, the idea being I would speak a letter sound, he would find the letter tile that represents the sound and place it on the appropriate square on the card. Given our breakthrough moments before, when we discussed the name & sound of Ff in such detail, I started with that: /f/.
He didn't know. He pointed to 2 different letters before declaring his frustration and I showed him the f tile, reminded him of our conversation and had him place it on the bingo board.
He placed it on the Tt spot. Which, granted, looks very similar to the Ff spot, so shouldn't surprise me (he never ever mistakes it when he is looking for T or t; that one he knows).
I move on, deciding that I will casually call out the letter sounds that make a straight line, allowing him to quickly get a Bingo before one of us (most likely me) gets discouraged. There are more mistakes along the way, and I am glad I chose to take the short way out today.
Later, he selects the letter tiles that spell his name. He knows how to write his name in capital letters, but still mixes up what lower case letters he needs. His name ends in an H, which he knows. He gets the first few letters right, then starts hunting for that last elusive H. He picks up a g and asks, "is this one H?" I try not to sigh as I hand him the "h" to end his name. And then I cheer when he shows me he has spelled his name with the letter tiles, overlooking that he's also put the c in backwards, which he never does when he writes it. I celebrate this small victory with him, and we move on to handwriting as I am just done with letter tiles for the day.
These are the ups and downs we face each and every day.
My mom-in-law reminded me, when we started, "remember, this is just like his very first year in school now, because you just now found out how to really help him" and I cling to that, daily, any time I start feeling sorry for myself about where he is compared to where he "should be."
I remember what she said, and remind myself that he should be right where he is, and that he is right where he should be: home, learning with people who love him and cheer on his successes without belittling him for his mistakes. Home, learning with people who work hard to understand and help him compensate for all the challenges he faces. Home, learning with people who make a point of remembering, as hard as this is for us, so much more so it is for him. Home, teaching the people who love him not to judge a person by his abilities, because the whole person is so very much more than that.
Yes, my Adventurer is right where he should be: Home. Teaching, and learning from, people who love him.
The Writer -- my oldest son, aged 15, is currently a freshman (9th grade) in high school, enrolled in an on-line program via TTUISD. He's taking a full course load, and doing really well. He is making solid As and Bs in all of his classes, he's learning study skills, time management skills, coping skills for when he's frustrated, how to juggle fun course work with not so fun course work, what time of day is best for doing the hard stuff, etc. The only thing I would change for him about this year is that if I could, I would switch out Art for Drama. His perfectionist tendencies are proving to be a serious hindrance to him as he works on art projects and his progress in that class is S.L.O.W. Very. My hope is that by the end of the year he'll learn how to adjust time spent on a project to match the weight the project carries in his grade; that a project worth 10% of his grade is not worth the time spent on one worth 50% of his grade. He struggles with the same issue every time he encounters a writing assignment for English; it's the one aspect of his schooling this year that tries my patience. Other than this one thing, though, I am very pleased with our choice this year to use an on-line school; it's really freed me up to work with my youngest, who really needs my time and attention. More on that in a bit....
The Artist -- my second son, aged 12, is currently in 6th grade. He is enrolled in two classes from TTUISD -- English and Science; he does math at home with Teaching Textbooks, reads everything he can get his hands on, and started (but we've let slide) a geography program that's research based. He's doing amazingly well. Luckily my husband is a Chemist by trade, so he helps with the science experiments (including bringing home random equipment from work so we can do the experiments to begin with); funny story -- I was "fired" by my husband on the very first week of trying to teach Kindergarten Science to my oldest son. As I tried to make my then 5 yr old understand the water cycle, and poor boy was bored to tears and not understanding anything, my husband came to the rescue, took the boy to the kitchen and a pot of boiling water later, the water cycle was explained, understood, and I didn't teach science again from then on. When the chance came to outsource Science I jumped for joy; my husband had long ago taken over, but lately work required too much time so Science became that poor neglected subject, as it does for so many. My boy is happy to have it in the schedule again, as he loves science. I am happy he can have it and I don't have to teach it. Win-win.
