Tag: resilliance

Rearing Competent Children

Rearing Competent Children

by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Why no new blog entries for a week?

My blog has been quiet for a week because I am in New York City with a group of ten high school seniors.  My husband and I are organizing and chaperoning their senior trip.

I taught six of the students we have with us when they were in elementary school.  Two of them were in a Kindergarten music class I was assigned to cover during one of my classroom teaching years. Those two plus one more were in a first grade class I taught.  Five of the ten were in my mainstream classroom for their 5th and 6th grade years.

There is a unique and I think interesting perspective that comes from reconnecting years later with people whom you taught as children.  It gives a chance to see the results of seeds planted by you and others along the path of each one’s journey into young adulthood.

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The goal is competence

We all want school children to get good grades; to memorize those spelling words, math facts, presidents, states and capitols; and to learn to turn in assignments on time. Parent Teacher Conference topics range from social skills to attitude issues to messy desks.   All those skills and minor goals are part of reaching toward a loftier, more over-arching goal.  We need to turn children needing our guidance and advice at every turn into young adults who are competent to stand on their own two feet and make good decisions, asking for help when they need it and able to navigate the difficulties and challenges which come into everyone’s life.

This group proved to me they have learned the lesson well

Yesterday my wonderful, map-reading, subway-navigating husband was down with a foul bug and had to stay behind in the hotel.  That left me to take our group into the city for the day’s activities. Alone, I could not have pulled it off.  But with me were ten capable high school seniors, ready to use their areas of strength to make up for my areas of weakness.

I am not up for the task of navigation, but I know two of the students have shown a keen interest in learning the layout of the city and how to read the maps. Map reading becomes their job.

I am not great at the subway, but one of the girls has made herself a student of the way subway stops work, and how to know when to get on and off.  She tracks our progress and tells us when it is time to get off.

I cannot both lead the way and watch our backs, but the tallest guy is willing to bring up the rear of our group, shepherding the slower ones through heavy foot traffic of Times Square’s five o’clock hour and counting people at each turn to be sure our whole group makes it together. He makes sure we don’t loose anyone.

Others shoulder tasks and take care of each other during times of need.  In short, this little group of seniors shows competence.  They step up and do what needs to be done, and our entire group benefits. The day was a success, despite the challenges it brought.

I would say the seeds planted in these students by so many teachers and family members are flourishing.  It is a beautiful thing to stand in the midst of this group of teens on a rainy New York City afternoon and think I may have had a tiny part in bringing them to this point. How glad I am to be a teacher.

Welcome to Holland

Welcome to Holland

by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This is one of my favorite stories to share with parents who have a child that is just being diagnosed with dyslexia.  It seems to help put into perspective how their journey in child rearing will be different from parents of a nondyslexic child. 

Welcome to Holland

by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared this unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel, what it’s like.

When you’re going to have a baby, its like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy.  You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make wonderful plans.  The Coliseum.  The Michelangelo David.  The gondolas in Venice.  You may learn some phrases in Italian.  It’s all very exciting.

After many months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.  You pack your bags, and off you go.  Several hours later, the plane lands.  The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?”  you say.  “What do you mean, Holland?!?  I signed up for Italy.  I’m supposed to be in Italy.  All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan.  They’ve landed in Holland, and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease.  It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks.  And you must learn a whole new language.  And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place.  It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy.  But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…and you begin to notice Holland has windmills…Holland has tulips…Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going fro Italy…and they’re all bragging about what  a wonderful time time they have had there.  And the rest of your life you’ll say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go.  That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away…because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But…if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things…about Holland.

There is a reason for that…

There is a reason for that…

by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Patrick has become a speedy and a good writer through the time we have worked together.  He has a razor sharp wit, and has learned to express it in writing.  Yesterday he finished his journal story in record time, made the few corrections I suggested, and needed another productive task to fill his time until the others in his small group finished their journals.

I suggested he and another early finisher get manipulatives from the closet and call out spelling words to each other to spell using the magnet letters, letter tiles or Upwords tiles.  His face screwed up, and he said, “You know, I never really know what you mean when you tell us to use …..” and his mouth went through a hilarious round of gyrations as he struggled to get out the word manipulatives.  I smiled and said it by syllables so he could hear it in parts, then put the whole word together.  The word came out successfully enough for my satisfaction, and after telling him I meant letter tiles or magnet letters, I turned to assist another student, thinking he was moving to the closet for supplies.

I heard Patrick’s question, phrased to the room in general. “Why do I do that?  Why do words get all twisted in my mouth when I try to say them?”  His voice carried a hint of humor, not frustration, so I let a student sitting near him give our standard answer.

Neil turned to Patrick with a smile and said, “I don’t want to shock you, but you have dyslexia!  That means sometimes the words get mixed around.”  Good natured laughter followed, and we all smiled before turning back to the tasks at hand.

It helps my students to know when their struggles are from dyslexia.  They benefit from knowing what they wrestle with is not their fault, and be able to joke about it and move on. Teaching them methods to overcome the difficulties is my daily mission and why I go to work each day, but the ability to laugh at themselves is a lesson that will carry them, and all of us, into a happier daily life.  After all, we all like to know there is a reason for that!

The Little Red Toolbox

The Little Red Toolbox

by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Too cool for school

In teaching children, there are a lot of wonderful moments of honesty. The way a child can cut right to the heart of a matter by an unvarnished version of life as he sees it is one of the things I love about teaching.

One of my students from several years ago, HD, was transferring to my school to be part of the Dyslexia Center program. He voiced his concerns the first time we met, about three weeks before school was set to start. He worried that no one at the new school would know what he could do, and that he was way too cool to have a reading problem. Unedited and forthright, he let me know right then that this was probably not the place for him, and encouraged me to share that news with his mom before it was too late for him to get back into his former school.

Great at building things

Prospective student interviews are really about making sure a student has what I call a teachable spirit, so we cover all kinds of topics during our time together. One thing that is usually very interesting is to ask a child what they are good at. People with dyslexia have areas of strength that are generally just as deep as their areas of weakness, and I like to know what those areas are for each of my students so our staff can be aware and build confidence by pointing out natural talent areas and using them in our lessons whenever possible.

HD told me he could build things. He named several projects he and his engineer dad had going out at their farm. Confidence filled his voice and his fifth grade shoulders squared as he detailed for me their fencing project. I was reminded of the importance of letting people shine as he filled me in on the key factors of wire tautness and post alignment. If ever I needed a fence, HD would be top of my list to call.

Desk chair pieces

While my classroom was free from fences to be erected, what I did truly need was someone to assemble my new desk chair. My confidence in being able to build it myself was shaken as soon as I opened the box and saw the great number of parts into which a chair can be disassembled so it fits into a small box. I asked HD’s mom if he could come one afternoon the next week and help me with the chair. A day and time were set, and HD advised me on the tools I would need to bring to get the job done.

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The little red toolbox

That afternoon at home, I related my idea of having HD build the desk chair to my usual go-to guys for assembly, my husband and three sons. My middle son, a college sophomore at the time, suggested I get a school tool box and stock it with the basics.  He recalled how he had liked using one of his teacher’s tools to fix stuff around school. A toolbox was ordered that evening, along with two screwdrivers, a hammer, pliers, a level and some allen wrenches. It arrived just in time for chair assembly day.

From a pile of pieces to a chair

On chair assembly afternoon, HD was a different boy from the one who let me know he was way too cool to need reading help. He was not too cool to help me, in fact he was interested in getting right down to work on that chair. The red metal toolbox met with his approval, although I had omitted an old baby food jar to keep loose screws in. Clearly I was fortunate to have HD to advise me on things mechanical, if I was such a novice that I hadn’t known I would need an old jar.

In a surprisingly short time, a working desk chair emerged from the random items included in the box from Staples. Since no desks had yet arrived in my classroom, and my teacher desk filled only a small corner of the room, we decided a few trial runs of how far each of us could propel the chair powered by only one push of our feet were in order. HD was a skinny kid, but he could bury me at desk chair rolling.

The right tools for the job

A new bond was forged that day. He was willing to let me help him with reading since I was willing to let him do my projects requiring tools. It was an agreement that served us both well, built on mutual respect and a willingness to let each other shine in our talent areas. All we needed were the right tools for the job.

Affirming Words

Affirming Words

by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Mark Twain wrote, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” The book of Proverbs says of the ideal woman that “Her mouth is full of wisdom, and kindness is on her tongue.” Kindness may not be in vogue in the current political climate of self-positioning and getting ahead by any means, but we are all drawn to kind people who affirm us. Compliments, like thin January sunshine after a week of gray skies, lift our spirits.

My dyslexic students work very hard and often have very little to show for it. That doesn’t mean their efforts should go unnoticed or unpraised. They, like Twain, will work much harder after an honest compliment. I try to daily find an accomplishment from each student that can be noted without being patronizing.  Kids can spot a fake a mile away. They hold me to the truth standard when I am giving out praise.

Handwriting is often a bone of contention for dyslexic people. There is a condition called dysgraphia which may co-exist with dyslexia.  It is basically confusion about the process of writing. Writing on the line, or even close to the line is a challenge in itself; let alone forming the letters correctly, spelling correctly AND remembering to slide the pencil over enough to leave space between the words.

I have two students whom I am sure have dysgraphia. One is toward the end of his time with me. I have been part of his educational life for 4 years, nearly all of his school life. Today I graded one of his writing assignments. A smile of pleasure bloomed across my face as I noted the neat, tight cursive writing, the excellent spacing, and the overall readability of the assignment. Expectantly watching me look over his work, the same smile crossed Patrick’s young face. This guy is out-of-the-park talented when it comes to story telling, and the content of his writing was superb, but that has never been the issue with him. Creativity oozes out of his every pore, and now he can write in a way that others can see that talent. I passed a reward tag across the table to him, and we shared a look of satisfaction as I praised his efforts. When a student does well, we both celebrate.

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My second dysgraphic/dyslexic student is at the beginning of his journey with me. We have traveled together only a few weeks, and he is just learning that I can be trusted, that I will never knowingly embarrass or put him on the spot, that I have a prize box in the cupboard which is not reserved only for kids who make A’s.

Today brought dictation sentences to his small group lesson, and as in the past, he was great at remembering the words to be written down. It was getting them onto the paper in a way I could read that was the issue. We have been working on it, and already there is improvement. Today as I rolled my chair to his spot across the table from me, he gave me a gap-toothed grin as my eyes slid to his work. There were spaces between the words today! And, for the most part, the words sat on the lines. A capital adorned the front of the sentence and a bowling ball of a period marked the end. WOW! I asked him if he knew how good his work was. He shyly said he knew, but that he liked to hear me tell him. Not holding back, I happily pointed out all the good things he had done on that sentence. He basked in the warmth of the words, affirming that his hard work was recognized and acknowledged.

He wrote his name on the reward tag with a flourish and dropped it into the box, half filled with other tags kids had earned for good work during that small group session. A small snowfall of white tags with initials penciled onto them. Each tag representing good work acknowledged, rewarded and praised. Each compliment a step toward building up a child so he or she can continue with the daunting task of working harder at reading and spelling than any of we non-dyslexic individuals can even imagine.

Eyeglasses and ADD

Eyeglasses and ADD

by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I have taught some real wigglers in my time.  Kids who need to move, climb, see what their neighbor is up to, do just about anything besides get down to the task at hand and stay there. Having been a restless child myself, I sympathize with kids who tend that way. Today we know that ADD and ADHD can interrupt thoughts and actions, and that there is a medical solution for this problem. A lot of research and progress has been made in the area in the past several years, and stigmas associated with medicating children for ADD or ADHD have fallen away.

My Classroom, circa 1982

I digress to tell one story from the long-ago of my teaching career. I had a class of second graders, and the boys’ favorite recess game was to reenact favorite episodes of A-Team, a popular TV show of that era.

One slender boy from that class struggled to make friends enough to be included in the fun and games. Justin made himself an outsider at recess by his in-class behavior.  The boy could not sit down and stay on task! His behavior got on the nerves of the entire class. His mom and I conferenced and schemed, tried behavior modification until we were the modified ones. The strategy which worked better than others was giving Justin three rocks on his desktop at the beginning of the morning, and three in the afternoon.  He could ask an unrelated question or get out of his seat for no reason, but he had to give me one of his rocks each time. When the rocks were gone, so were his “free passes.”  The getting out of his seat and asking unrelated questions improved, but I can’t say that we ever addressed the underlying problem that caused the behavior issues.  We never did get him to the place he longed to be but didn’t know how to achieve.  Justin was never chosen to be “Face” in the A-Team recess game.  They always invited him to be “Murdock.”  The crazy, annoying team member. Justin’s behavior affected not only his learning life, but also his social interactions.

Back to the Present – there are choices now!

Fast forward 30 years, and as you were telling me through your computer while you read about Justin, he probably was ADHD.  There was little he could do to control his behavior or the effect it had on those around him.  Happily, today there are choices to help the Justins of the world.  Many of the choices are pharmaceutical ones.  That is a Huge Deal.

Let me tell you what I see in my classroom when one of my students who normally takes medication for ADD or ADHD comes in without a dose of the medication that morning.  I cannot effectively teach him or her, and he or she cannot effectively focus on what is being presented.  The medication allows learning to take place in a way that it cannot in the absence of the medication.  I am not a doctor, nor a psychologist, nor a pharmacist, only a teacher in a classroom.  All I know is what I see.  I see that kids who have ADD or ADHD learn better when they are appropriately helped, and that help may be medication.

Read the newest information

Dyslexia and ADD or ADHD do not always go together.  Dr. Eric Tridas has an excellent book, The ABC’s of ADHD. He estimates that about 30% of children with dyslexia also have ADD or ADHD. If you or your child falls into that 30%, I urge you to follow your child’s best interest, and not to rely on outdated information or old ways of thinking. Get a copy of Dr. Tridas’ book and read up on the newest information available.

Another story to give some perspective

One of my tutors gives an example about ADD or ADHD medications that I think succinctly sums up the issue.  She relates that Stacy was discussing with Tammy how she did not give her child the prescription for ADD or ADHD medication all the time. Stacy complained that the medication didn’t seem to do much for her child anyway.  Incredulous, Tammy asked Stacy if she wore her glasses all the time. The answer was a surprised yes. Stacy couldn’t see to read or drive without the glasses. She needed them all the time to make her path clear. Your child, Tammy said, needs the medication all the time too, so her path is clear.  Medication is to an ADD or ADHD child what glasses are to a near or farsighted individual.  A tool that helps overcome a medical obstacle.  Nothing more, and nothing less.