The Summer Slag

Dear Reader-

Summer is thought of lazy days, relaxing in the sun, and sharing moments with those we care for. The heat of the summer causes us to slow down just a little bit, and enjoy the time we have. I especially love these summer months when I can spend it with my family. On this long weekend, we spent it camping and secretly I hid behind a book so that I could watch my children play. As I was watching my daughter do back spring after back spring and be amazed in her tumbling skills. Now, this is coming from a mother who could never do a somersault. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get my feet up in the air. I was so discouraged with tumbling, and felt that you needed some magic talent in order to master the skill. Now, my daughter is quite different, I kept thinking, thank goodness she didn't do a tuck, even though she has mastered this skill on the gymnastic floor. She is good at tumbling, so she continues to practice her skills relentlessly, so naturally she is only getting better and better. This is the same thing with reading. The more we practice our skills, the more proficient we will become. For example, I knew I was never be good at tumbling, so eventually I gave up. Could it be the same way for our struggling readers? Why would you want to perform a task that is so difficult, which then becomes not enjoyable?

As teachers and parents, we see this all the time. Our child was performing, or reading better in May, then in August when they enter school. How frustrating is that, to have to go back before progress can be made. In education, there is a term that is coined: The Matthew Effect. The more a student reads, the better they will be. Imagine that! Therefore, if a child who does not read in the summer, naturally their reading ability will decline, which is the summer lag. Yet, how do we expect those students who do not enjoy reading or find the task to be so difficult, to spend their summer months practicing. Yet all it would take, would be a great book that hooks the child, at a level that is just right, not too hard, nor too easy. How do we get all our students, especially those struggling readers excited about reading? If they could only practice, how much better will they be?

-Maria

Is it how many are right, or how many are wrong?

Dear Reader,

Sometimes we have to reach back into our memories, and think about our own experiences as a reader? Did we love it, or was reading a chore? How did we perform in school?

My oldest son, is preparing to go off to college next year and he was asking me about my experiences taking those dreaded ACT. I forgot that I refused to take them, and he was shocked that I would be so defiant. You see, I am an advocate for education and my diploma has the Magna Cum Laude inscribed, of course I must do well, therefore my test scores should be high. Who knows? Of course his next question would be why?

You see when I was in elementary school, I was not considered to be the best student. I struggled because our primary language was Spanish, and I was enrolled in an American school system. However, my mother made me feel as if I was the brightest student ever. She would always applaude my efforts, and would tell me that at least I answered half the questions right, instead of 50% F :( I loved to see myself through her rose colored glasses, and I think the key is that she still continues to believe in me to this day. She never doubted the fact that I would not do well in school, and always had those high expectations. Yes, I took the longer path by having to enroll in a junior college and take extra classes that helped me tremendously.

I think that as parents and teachers, we need to have those high expectations for our children. Yes, we do expect them to learn, but in their own way and time. They are all superstars, and that number that we place on them does not define who they are. Instead we need to teach to their strengths, knowing that in time they will learn and reach their potential, celebrating what they do well.

-Maria Creighton

Thank you, . . . teacher

Dear Reader,

Monday night, I was sitting in grad. class, I am motivated this summer to graduate and receive my Masters degree because my oldest son will be a senior this year. Yes, I feel old and wonder where the time went. Also, I regret not having pursued my education dreams sooner in my life. The funny thing is and hate to admit, but I really am enjoying my graduate classes. Well back to my Monday night class, we are watching a video, yes a VHS :) about one of my favorite children's authors Patricia Polacco. She is amazing!!!

In the video, she shared a part of her life that touched me, she talked about feeling "dumb" in school because she did not see the words like her friends in school did. She felt that something was wrong with her, to the point that she was contemplating taking her own life. How horrible. She has made an incredible impact on so many young lives as she shares her stories with them. There is so much a child can learn when they experience one of her books. I shudder to think that she ever felt like that in school, and the measures that she must have had to undertake to hide her difficulties from her mother, who is a teacher and her other teachers who would pass her along. It was Mr. Falker that discovered her disability, and found a way that she could taste the sweet honey found in books.

When she came to the realization that it was not her fault that she could not read, and that she was not dumb; it was that she learned or saw things differently from others. It was a turning point, a place in her life that she found hope and wanted to continue to live. At 14 years old, she worked extremely hard to catch up with her peers, she did and continued in her education receiving a PhD. in art history. Amazing, how a teacher can change the course of a child's life, and the incredible works they leave behind. Inspiring.

I think about my own son, and the wonderful teachers he has had. It is they who have made a difference in him, and held my hand along the path. It is a difficult path to take, but these students are Genius's as Patricia Polacco puts it, and it is the teacher who makes the difference.

Be sure to check out Patricia Polacco book, "Thank You, Mr. Falker."

-Maria Creighton

Children's literature for adults?

Dear reader,

One of my favorite activities is to read. I love to get absorbed in a book, and when I finish the experience, I find myself maybe seeing things just a little bit differently. Since I teach, I include children's genres in my vast diet of books and sometimes I come across one that changes my perspective. These characters I hold dear to my heart, as I try to connect to my own students in my classroom.

Many times I have students who have ADHD or have a difficult time paying attention, consequently affecting their ability to do well in school. Sometimes their minds are just so busy, or maybe just spinning around that they have completely missed the lesson. Instead of getting upset, I just take a step back and remember Joey Pigza, one of Jack Gantos characters. Poor Joey, he does not have an ideal home life, he is so impulsive that he tells his teacher that "I'll get back to you on that," but he has good intentions with a heart of gold. He loves to try to swallow a key and pull it out, until he swallows it one day. He had forgotten that the key was not attached to the string. Oooops. Reading Jack Gantos books has helped me understand ADHD by getting inside of Joey's inner self and realizing he is not a "bad kid." I recommend these books to my parents as well.

Sometimes, it is easier to bond and connect with our students, if we understand and be sympathetic with them. ADHD sometimes interfere with a child's ability to read or comprehend because they are unable to concentrate. As teachers, we need to adjust our lessons accordingly, and allow for a little more activity :) I love books because it allows me to experience a world that is completely different from mine, or connect to a world that is similar to mine.

-Maria Creighton

Is it a "b" or a "d"?

One of the most confusing letter for some children to master is the "b" and the "d." If we take a moment to look at these two letters, they have a lot of similarites. For example, there is a straight line going up, out of the side of a round circle. The difference is crucial because that is what distinguishes the letter. the way in which the circle is positioned. There are many mneumonics that can be used to assist children in determining what letter it is.

My oldest son was very fortunate because he had three b's in his name, he would write his name on the paper, and knew exactly, which was which. My daughter did not have a b in her name, so we had to put this issue to rest. No pun intended, we drew a bed and wrote the word. There are the two letters, side by side with e in the middle. Well, how did we know which was first well, b comes before d.

Of course, all children are different and there is never one approach that works 100% of the time. There more strategies we have the better. I want you to take a moment to envision, a big red balloon. This balloon needs to be incredible, so we will make it big and we will want to share it with the world. What would we need to do with it? Of, course fill it up with helium. If I let go, you know exactly what will happen. The balloon would go up in the air. If you take a child's left hand, because the majority of the time that child will have a pencil in their right hand, and have them make a fist (where you can not see the knuckles). Then have the child point their thumb in the air (the direction that the red balloon is going), now you have a b for balloon. Of course, we continue with the opposite, but in this case it is not the d. We think of pigs, and how much they love to play in the mud. These pigs like to go way down in the mud, now the child can point their thumb down to create a p for pigs. Now what about the poor d, well if we know that it is not b by looking at our left hand when writing, then we know it just has to be the other letter. The other letter, which is d. A multi-sensory technique.

What techniques do you use when helping children with these confusing letters?

What do you see?

I remember when I was pregnant with Chad, my eye-sight had started diminishing, so I thought. We had gone bowling with some friends, and I had made a comment about how small the numbers were above the lanes, the best thing I could do was count them. My friend started laughing, thinking I was joking, which of course I wasn't. That prompted me to go to the eye doctor. Yes, the diagnosis was a astigmatism that I had, had all my life. I didn't pay attention to how tired my eyes were at the end of the day, how close I would hold a book when I read, or completely slanted my paper as I wrote because unconsciously I had made accommodations for my lack of eye sight. It was so bad, that I never noticed that I could not read the street signs until I was close to them. I remember the first time I put my glasses on, I saw the world completely different, and was amazed with all the unobserved details that I had missed.

When my child's teacher discussed her concerns with me, I panicked and did not know what to do. There are not many resources or places one can go for a diagnosis of Dyslexia. I found an eye doctor in Louisiana who specialized with visual perception problems and gave my child a lengthy diagnosis. In essence, our eyes are muscles that work together when visually processing text/information and sometimes our muscles are weak, thus do not work together. He claimed that his eyes would jump or react in a certain way to text, consequently interfering with his visual process. The images in front of him might be perceived as blurred or he would miss it completely. Best of all, this is corrected with eye therapy. The doctor gave me exercises that we would do after school, and then spent one summer traveling back and forth to receive therapy there.

The first time we did the therapy at home, I put on his colored glasses, and placed the color overlay on top. I could not see a thing, everything was blurry. As I was trying to go through the exercises, my child was laughing hysterically because he saw everything just fine when he used them. Of course, when I took the glasses off, I had done everything all wrong.

Imagine how hard it is to read text when something is interfering with the process. Sometimes, we may not even know that we see the world differently, but just make accommodations to adjust to it.

Looking through our eyes. . .

Have you ever thought about how big our world is, yet still so small? The same ideas that are talked about in one country, are the same that are discussed across miles of water.

Reading is a complex process. Yet, once we have mastered it, it becomes so automatic and natural that we do not stop to think about all of the skills we must possess in order to understand the text. I remember when I started driving, it was the most difficult and stressful thing imaginable. I am not sure if, it was because I learned how to drive from my mother or that we lived in Southern California and practiced in the midst of traffic. My driver's ed. coach, also did not have much faith in me, and surprisingly I passed my driver's test on my 16th birthday. (Thank goodness, that when I was asked to parallel park there was not a car in front or behind me). Today, I do not stop and think about all the visual information that I have to process and act upon while handling my car. Reading is the same way.

As we read the text, we have to process the print. According to Ronald Davis, the author of The Gift of Dyslexia, the reader who is dyslexic does not process the information the same way, thus the text becomes confusing. Many dyslexic readers say that they see images when reading, and not the words. For instance, instead of seeing the word RED, the reader my just see the image of the color red. While I look at the letters that are combined, and automatically think about the sounds, blend them together to create the word the color red, and then associate with the color. Same thing with the word cat, I blend it together to create the word cat, and then associate it to the image. While the dyslexic readers looks at the whole of the word, not the letters, visually imaging a cat. Sometimes the reader, can not visualize or it may be difficult to associate an image with the words found within a sentence causing confusion when reading.

How does this relate to my initial question? My mother-in-law returned from a visit to Ireland after visiting a friend and mentioned that one of the Sisters in the church parish tutors pupils who are Dyslexic. She uses the methods discussed in the book that I had just finished. Wow, can you imagine that. Her work is very interesting, she does a lot of visual therapy and has her students create images out of clay to associate them with words. It goes back to how we perceive the world.