Hearing Journey Bunny Story

Random Thoughts:

• Thanks to Queen Mum, we might be receiving some money for RDI therapy! See if you have any missing money!
• David's youth group made the paper for fixing up the trailer of a needy elderly lady in town: picture and story. Somehow, David evaded the reporter, but I told him to keep Matthew 6:1-4 in mind!
• I cracked up reading Thurber's opinion of Freud in one of our AmblesideOnline--which has a new look--books The Thurber Carnival. If I post the title of the essay, I might lose my blog's G-rating, so you can read the chapter here!
• My fingers are tired from crocheting some baby surprises for friends with child. My niece is due on November 11, but we are not sure what that makes me. I am her aunt, but I have no idea what that makes me to her child.
• Two exciting movies are coming soon: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed and Prince Caspian!
• Yesterday, Pamela and I sat on our sunny, delightful back porch rockers, doing school work. We loved seeing all of our feathered friends in action: a brilliant male Northern Cardinal, Northern Mockingbird, a House Finch husband and wife team at the bird bath, two feisty Bluejays, a flock of Chipping Sparrows, noisy American Crows, Common Grackles galore, and a Carolina Wren (FINALLY).
• Pamela's latest self-imposed research project is on time zones. She is learning all of the time zones of all fifty states. She does understand what they mean, too!

Back to the Bunny Story:
Awhile back, my friend Queen Mum told me about Hearing Journey, a website for people with cochlear implants that provides free weekly and monthly activities. I have gotten so much mileage. While I rarely use the resources as suggested, I definitely find them useful. One of our favorite activities the site posts in the preschool section from time to time are wordless books. I cut them up into cards, and we flip through the cards. Before showing her one card, we play a guessing game until she guesses the topics. I usually give her a couple of clues. Then, I show her the first card, which she narrates. Before flipping to the next card, she has to guess what might happen next. Every book has six pages.

Before Easter, we read a story about a bunny. I posted a picture here because the activity is no longer available (TIP: Download the ones with potential so you can do them when time permits). The funny thing was Pamela thought the bunny had injured its foot and needed to see a doctor. She did not realize until near the end that the bunny's foot was dirty. I am including a video clip per page because we both enjoyed this experience with many wonderfully warm moments. If your time is limited, page four was the highlight, heart-warming, tissue moment for me!

Page 1 of the Wordless Bunny Book


Page 2 of the Wordless Bunny Book


Page 3 of the Wordless Bunny Book


Page 4 of the Wordless Bunny Book
My Numero Uno Favorite Clip!!!!!


Page 5 of the Wordless Bunny Book


Page 6 of the Wordless Bunny Book

Collecting Information

I am trying to be complete in my coverage of Pamela's reading, oral narration, graphic organizers, and written narration of Chapter 3 of Miracles on Maple Hill. Here is a quick recap: before reading one word from this chapter, we reviewed and recalled earlier readings by having Pamela ask her own questions. Then, we did our typical language arts cycle and Pamela filled out some setting sheets.

In this session, Pamela started off by working on another graphic organizer for setting, pictured below and covered in the video clip below the picture. Earlier in this session, we reviewed and recalled the previous reading. I edited out the redirection I gave Pamela because I posted it elsewhere. Out of thirty minutes of recording, I spent three minutes redirecting her. She rarely does this and I think two things threw her off: (1) her dad worked at home that day and (2) he spent about ten minutes drumming (yes, rock and roll band drums) at the other end of the house!




Then, we transitioned to a fact sheet about mice, pictured below and shown in the recording below that.

What to Do BEFORE a Reading

We're back from a busy week, and I hope to wrap up the stuff I have on graphic organizers and narration. Today, Nicole Beurkens let me know that the Horizons Developmental Remediation Center will make a donation to the RDI Scholarship fund for every person who signs up to receive their free weekly email newsletter. I can't argue with free and supporting a good cause!

Charlotte Mason recommended recalling the previous reading to get into a new reading. She said, "Let each new lesson be so interlaced with the last that the one must recall the other; that again, recalls the one before it, and so on to the beginning" (page 158). Research on learning confirms this because the brain has a better chance of storing new information (unknown) by linking to already stored information (known). She explained what to do before every reading,

In every case the reading should be consecutive from a well-chosen book. Before the reading for the day begins, the teacher should talk a little (and get the children to talk) about the last lesson, with a few words about what is to be read, in order that the children may be animated by expectation; but she should beware of explanation and, especially, of forestalling the narrative (pages 232-233).

In an earlier post, Pamela filled out a graphic organizer that encouraged her to reflect upon the reading and ask herself questions. This is another way to help link a previous reading to the next section. The picture below shows what she wrote and the video clip shows how we did it.



Answering Her Own Question

Ketchup Post after Taking a Breather

Last weekend was quite busy. On Saturday, Pamela expected me to shop at the health food store, which is a four-hour event since the drive takes three hours, round trip. Driving home, I noticed white clouds ahead of us and ugly black clouds in the rear view mirror. Soon after arriving home, the storms that spawned tornadoes in Atlanta slammed into us: the hail was flying an hour north of us and tornadoes knocked down power lines, trees, and a church steeple just twenty minutes to the south.



The next day, I spent two hours at Sunday School and church. During my short break, I accepted petsitting custody of a parakeet named Lily (isn't she adorable?) and two beta fish before heading off to a choir festival. I drove an hour (round trip), rehearsed an hour, and sat through the two-hour concert. Then, we took the youth to a pizza dinner, which lasted about two hours followed by an hour long conversation I had with the pastor.




Monday, I filled in for our Bible study leader, which ate up three hours between the preparation, lesson, and cleanup. Not that I mind getting together with other ladies to discuss lesson 8 of Beth Moore's Daniel, a fascinating and exciting Bible study, which covered two prominent figures in history: Alexander the Great and Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Even better, I shared with them other stories I knew about Alexander the Great based on The Story of the Greeks, a living book recommended by Ambleside Online. Since I had not read very much about Antiochus IV, I located The Hammer, a living book about this period of Jewish history. I spent the rest of Monday doing narrations with David, catching up the laundry, and helping Steve pack for his ten-day trip to China.

After Steve left at four Tuesday morning, I could not get back to sleep. Pamela and I had an appointment to do some paperwork for autism stuff, which required another hour in the car, round trip. We made it home by noon. And, who could forget about pollen season! I am obviously allergic to something blooming that leaves a trail of yellow pollen everywhere. That nasty stuff piles up on our brick pathway and coats the car, too. Fortunately, I stumbled upon two tricks that keeps me off of medication during allergy season: bee pollen made in Carolina and homeopathic eye drops. Whenever my throat itches, about ten granules will stop the reaction in its tracks. If I ignore the itch without taking bee pollen, the sneezing attack starts about a half hour later. Whenever my eyes burn and itch, the eye drops will prevent any further reaction. Again, if I ignore the first symptoms, my eyes will become inflamed and turn red within a half hour.




I spent the rest of Tuesday, taking a nap and trying to get over a dull headache. Except to read and dump email, I didn't answer any emails nor blog. My eyes crossed every time I looked at the computer screen.

Pamela invented some car games with all of that drive time! (1) If we see a license plate from out of state, we decide if it is going the wrong way or right way to get home. It is a great way to work on sense of direction. (2) Pamela usually holds the atlas and studies the states. Then, she asks me questions to test my knowledge of the states!

Redirecting My Apprentice

A couple of people have commented, either publicly or privately, about Pamela's ability to be a willing apprentice. Trust me! It took years and years and years of trial and error (lots of error on my part) to get this far. I can still hear her piercing screams and crying and falling on the floor when I was asking her to do things way outside of her zone of proximal development or when sensory overload caused her to meltdown.

On Friday, we had a couple of power struggles where Pamela got angry at me. My strategies include:

• Stay calm. If I am calm, she has a greater chance of staying calm.
• Stop and spotlight my emotion. A year ago, she would not have even noticed. Now, she sees when I am upset.
• Make a command decision to scaffold by making the task a bit easier.
• Use body language and slower pace of speaking to spotlight what I am saying.
• Agree to her proposition if it fits my objective for the activity.
• Postpone her proposition until after she meets my objective for the activity.
• Remind her to breathe and use sensory calming.

The follow clips shows our missteps on the path of self-regulation.

Wordless Wednesday: More Self-Assigned Math Problems!

Panel: Schools Should Focus on Fractions

Forming Character through Private Speech

I promised myself to finish up Chapter 3 of Awakening Children's Minds by March 15, so I better get on with it. This blog post covers the middle of that chapter, which points out the relationship between private speech and behavior. Parents of older children with autism often reassure parents of younger children that behaviors are at their worst between the ages of 3 and 5 (meltdowns, tantrums, overall unhappiness with something unexpected happens). This chapter got me wondering if one reason why behaviors are so challenging for young autistic kiddos might be language delays.

According to this chapter, the ability to inhibit impulses and redirect behavior "depends in part on brain development--specifically, growth of neural connections in the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex" (page 89). The frontal lobe controls planning, inhibition, and memory encoding (all challenges for children in the autism spectrum). In a paper published in 2005, neuroscientists Eric Courschene and Karen Pierce found abnormalities in the frontal lobe: they suggest that "connectivity within frontal lobe is excessive, disorganized and inadequately selective, whereas connectivity between frontal cortex and other systems is poorly synchronized, weakly responsive and information impoverished." The frontal cortex studied excessively connected with itself, making it "deficient in reciprocally interacting with other cortical regions." In short, the frontal lobes of an autistic person may be autistic! This means that people in the spectrum often find it difficult to integrate information from a variety of sources and to provide feedback to, guide, and control lower level parts of the brain. All of these issues would make it difficult for spectrum children to control their behavior.

Dr. Laura E. Berk recommends teaching preschoolers good habits through "adult conversation, guidance, and example" from "warm and sensitive and clear, consistent, and reasonable" parents. One challenge in forming habits is the sheer number of them (page 88),

But the young child who wants so much to be good must assimilate a great many rules--rules for taking care of property; rules for respecting other people; rules for safety; rules for self-care, eating, and dressing; rules for doing chores; rules for good manners; and more.

Here is the nut of this section for parents of autistic children: "And the best predictor of individual difference in self-control was language development" (page 89). Why? Children benefit greatly when adults suggest how to wait patiently by changing their thoughts or how to resist doing something unacceptable by thinking about the other person's feelings. They reference the reactions of adults to learn when to feel proud, guilty, or ashamed of their behavior. The child would have difficulty changing behavior when she finds it difficult to process verbal guidance from adults, lacks the private speech to direct herself, and cannot interpret the reaction of adults to her behaviors.

Laura also points out that how we guide children should depend upon their temperament. Sensitive, inhibited children form good habits easily and respond best to "mild, patient discipline--polite requires, explanations, and suggestions for how to resist temptation" (page 91). Impulsive, fearless children show little remorse with mild parenting but become belligerent with tough love. Relationship is everything to these children: "an early, warm sensitive parent-child bond is a good predictor of conscience at age 5 in these children" (page 91). I have one of each, and my experience matches this theory. My inhibited child (Pamela) needs a soft touch, while my impulsive child (David) responds best to people with whom he has a close bond.

I found many parallel thoughts between Laura Berk and Charlotte Mason in this chapter. Charlotte devoted many pages to developing good habits in children of all ages: infant, mental, and moral habits and physical, intellectual, moral, and religious training. Just like Laura, she realized that children who want to be good need guidance, "He is born to love the good, and to hate the evil, but he has no real knowledge of what is good and what is evil; what intuitions he has, he puts no faith in, but yields himself in simplicity to the steering of others" (page 331). She also preferred a hopeful and expectant style over a barrage of do's and don't or bullying children into submission. To teach self-management (pages 324-326), she recommended thinking about the benefits of resisting temptation, finding a diversion, changing thoughts, etc. Finally, Charlotte recognized the role of temperament and, in her book on forming character, she employed different strategies, depending upon the nature of the child. I will close with a quote from Charlotte (page 102),

We entertain the idea which gives birth to the act and the act repeated again and again becomes the habit; 'Sow an act,' we are told, 'reap a habit.' 'Sow a habit, reap a character.' But we must go a step further back, we must sow the idea or notion which makes the act worth while. The lazy boy who hears of the Great Duke's narrow camp bed, preferred by him because when he wanted to turn over it was time to get up, receives the idea of prompt rising. But his nurse or his mother knows how often and how ingeniously the tale must be brought to his mind before the habit of prompt rising is formed; she knows too how the idea of self-conquest must be made at home in the boy's mind until it become a chivalric impulse which he cannot resist.

Blending Therapies with Graphic Organizers

To recap my last post on how Pamela and I read books, we begin a reading by recalling the last one: (1) thinking about the known and asking questions about the unknown, (2) reading the title and predicting the problem, or (3) narrating the previous reading. After that, Pamela is ready to read several pages from a chapter book. Keeping in mind the zone of proximal development, we rarely read an entire chapter in one sitting.

This time I printed out sheets on setting from an ebook of graphic organizers (you can also try making your own in Word or downloaded free ones). I needed three sheets to cover the chapter: downstairs, upstairs, and outside.

Downstairs:


Upstairs:


Outside:


When we read and narrate books, we cycle from one method to another. First, she reads half a page, closes the book, and narrates what she remembers orally (Charlotte Mason). Then, I open the book and ask her questions with the page in view to practice syntax (the association method). After that, we shift to the graphic organizer for Pamela to record her ideas. Then, we cycle back to reading the book until we make it through our goal for the day. In all activities, I encourage her with a warm, playful attitude and dialog as we figure out what needs to go on the sheet.

The following clip illustrates one day's worth of reading and narrations. I did edit as much as I could, but, since I know parents of struggling narrators (especially autistic kiddos) have asked about how you narrate with someone still learning English as a first language. The clip lasts fourteen minutes, but I did add titles throughout it to explain the method behind the madness.

Asking Questions before a Reading

Pamela and I have worked years for her to be ready to write her own narrations. Thanks to the association method, she has stockpiled enough syntax to form simple sentences. Last summer, I began easing her into written narrations by making sentence strips based upon her oral narration. Now, as recommended by Jennifer Spencer in a presentation at last year's Charlotte Mason Conference, I am using graphic organizers to help her organize her ideas before she writes. In this post, I will cover one of several we review before a reading. I have three sources for graphic organizers: (1) I make my own in Word with the diagram feature, (2) I read through an e-book I purchased online, and (3) I print out free ones.

Charlotte Mason believed that my part, as an educator, is to look over the day's work in advance and "see what mental discipline, as well as what vital knowledge, this and that lesson afford" (page 180). Today, Pamela started Chapter 3 of Miracles on Maple Hill. At the beginning of every chapter, I try to find a graphic organizer to help her get back into the plot. In this case, I chose one in which the student writes what is known and asks questions about what is unknown. Charlotte believed that children ought to come up with their own questions when reading (page 181),

Let the pupil write for himself half a dozen questions which cover the passage studied; he need not write the answers if he be taught that the mind can know nothing but what it can produce in the form of an answer to a question put by the mind to itself.

In the story, the protagonist, Marly, is a little girl whose father is grieving his experience as a soldier and prisoner of war in World War II. The family decides to move to the country to farm and fix up her deceased great grandmother's old abandoned house in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania. At the beginning of the chapter, Marly enters the neglected house for the first time. We left one column empty because we hope the book will answer these questions. Having previewed the chapter, I know she will be able to answer the third question after she finishes Chapter 3.


In the video clip, you can see us in action. I edited portions of the clip in which Pamela was writing and added titles to spotlight what we are doing. The first obvious thing is how much Pamela references me both verbally and nonverbally! Second, I try to rely on declarative language as much as possible, even when redirecting her when she misses the mark. One thing to keep in mind is that open-ended questions with no right or wrong answers are declarative if she willingly offers an answer. Third, she pays attention to nonverbal cues when I use my gasp and face to point out a missing question mark. I plan to follow-up with more posts and clips about how we blend graphic organizers, Charlotte Mason, the association method, and RDI to teach Pamela written narration.

When Is Cheating Really Cheating?

I find the whole discussion of private speech in the book Awakening Children's Minds fascinating because Pamela has so little of it. Lev Vygotsky found a link between social speech and private speech, which makes sense because Pamela's lack of social speech as a young child would explain the lack of private speech. One quote from Laura's book makes me go "Ouch!" (page 81),

Other observations of children's language concur that social and private speech have common roots. For example, the most socially interactive preschool and kindergarten children tend to use the most private speech. . . When an adult places barriers between young children, such as cardboard screens or upright books that prevent easy visual access (a practice that, as noted in Chapter 2, American teachers often use to keep children from seeing one another's work), both social speech and self-guiding utterances that might be helpful in mastering a task diminish drastically.

My mind gets all twisted in thinking through this. I attended a college that kicked out students for cheating! Clearly, copying another person's work and passing it off as your own is cheating. I think you must give credit where credit is due when submitting work as your own. However, in the real world, people work together; they collaborate and share ideas in nearly job you can imagine. In my first semester of an electrical engineering class, I became lab partners with a football player who excelled at the hands-on work. We made a great team because I excelled at the theoretical calculations and write-up. By some miracle, we ended up in the same class for second semester and teamed up again. Is it cheating when children work together while learning new tasks that should not be graded anyway? Is it cheating when parents scaffold a child doing homework? What is a parent to do when their child develops the habit of frustration because the parent feels guilty about scaffolding?

Why is private speech so important? Vygotsky discoverd that the rate of private speech doubles when young children face obstacles in their learning. While older children do not react in this way, "they usually pause (as if to think) and quickly redirect their behavior" (page 83). He asked older children about their thoughts, and they described inner thought that matched the private speech of younger children. Private speech is the foundation of the soundless inner speech we use to guide our actions when solving problems. This reflection of social speech allows children to regulate their behaviors. Children keep tasks within the zone of proximal development through private speech in the same way that adults encourage children with their warm social communication while scaffolding. In short, private speech is one form of self-regulation.

Right now, when she feels stuck, Pamela engages in social speech, not private speech. To verify my assumption, I ignored her today when she started verbalizing her struggles with math and language arts. She repeated her statements several times, getting louder, and then looked up at me to see if I was paying attention to her. I quickly realized that Pamela intended these verbalizations to be social speech and not private speech because she was not satisfied until I responded!

Pamela's lack of private speech fascinates me because I am not sure whether she has already advanced to soundless inner speech or is still mastering the social speech that will become private speech (and eventually inner speech). Time will tell!

Grace in Geometry

Lisa Cadora's blog post on Grace and Learning got me to thinking about David and his checkered past with math. She described the frustrations of teaching herself to crochet a cool, hip accessory and how much more gracious we are with ourselves than with our students. She concludes,

Charlotte Mason said that the only education is self-education. Did she see that grace is necessary for learning, and that we are most graceful with ourselves? If so, maybe it’s not only that we as teachers must create gracious, grace-ful conditions, environments and relationships in which our students can learn, but that we must bring them to be gracious to themselves.

My husband has two engineering master's degrees, and I have one in statistics. For many years, I thought the math gene had skipped my fifteen-year-old, neurotypical son, David. His temperament is very much like that of my father, who has never met a math problem he liked. Teaching David elementary school math frustrated us both. In hindsight, I think I was part of the problem. I think sometimes, if I had shown more grace, we would have shed fewer tears. Fortunately, he finds algebra and geometry a breeze. Was it maturity and a leap in abstract thinking or a more gracious attitude from me?

I think grace in learning might be related to masterly inactivity (wise letting alone). Elements of masterly inactivity include "authority, good humor, confidence, both self-confidence and confidence in the children," which I lacked because I assumed David would always struggle with math like my father. I stopped looking him as a unique person and saw him as a mirror image of my father because they have so many personality traits in common.

Charlotte Mason believed that we should be gracious enough to let children take personal initiative in their work (page 37-38):

In their work, too, we are too apt to interfere with children. We all know the delight with which any scope for personal initiative is hailed, the pleasure children take in doing anything which they may do their own way; anything, in fact, which allows room for skill of hand, play of fancy, or development of thought. With our present theories of education it seems that we cannot give much scope for personal initiative. There is so much task-work to be done, so many things that must be, not learned, but learned about, that it is only now and then a child gets the chance to produce himself in his work. But let us use such opportunities as come in our way.

On the flip side of this coin, we hurt our children by letting them get so frustrated that they develop the habit of tears. I think we also must keep in mind scaffolding, being alert when to step in and support the child and when to step out a la masterly inactivity. The geometry problem above is a great example. David had to figure out the measurement of each angle in the problem, based upon the diagram and information provided. He had to apply the definitions of bisected angles and right angles, the relationship between vertical and supplementary angles, and the sum of interior angles for triangles (180 degrees) and quadrilaterals (360 degrees). What made this problem difficult is that one wrongly calculated angle would create a domino effect of errors.

Applying masterly inactivity, I left David to his own devices. He worked his way through the calculations and figured out the angles for about five shapes before coming to me because the problem stopped making sense. Then, I switched to scaffolding and congratulated him for recognizing when he was stuck. I studied his work and noticed an error. I erased all of the mistakes and highlighted what was correct, and he went back to work. He went back and forth with me several times, getting frustrated at himself for his errors. Rather than joining him in his vent, I told him about Lisa's blog post about giving yourself grace when making mistakes. I even emailed it to him later in the day. I reassured him that the problem really was challenging and got him back on track.

In the last round, he made another little mistake and I decided to put all of the formulas into a spreadsheet to make sure I was on the right track, too. As I built the spreadsheet, I realized how complicated the problem was. At that point, I was so thankful to have read Lisa's post that morning and let grace win the day.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, All Ye RDI CMers!

ChildLightUSA just posted the audio file, handout, and three video clips (Tweaking CM, RDI, Association Method Part I and Part II) of my talk on assessing therapies from a Charlotte Mason perspective.

The blurb about the talk is:

Therapies recommended for special needs children can cloud one's vision of education as "an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life." The speaker will demonstrate how to translate one autism therapy into Charlotte Mason terminology and accept or reject principles that respect a child's personhood. The participants will do the same for a speech program for language-delayed children. They will leave the class more confident in selecting the therapies most suited to a Charlotte Mason philosophy. They will leave inspired by Miss Mason's language arts program, which enabled a person with life-long speaking challenges to learn recitation!

P.S. Don't forget to put the Fourth Annual Charlotte Mason Conference on your calendar: June 11 through June 14. ChildLightUSA even offers online registration and a discount for early birds!

Go Ahead! Talk to Yourself!

I finally hit Chapter 3 of Awakening Children's Minds by Dr. Laura E. Berk. Since this chapter focuses on children talking to themselves, I started thinking about Pamela and her private talk, which began when she was seven years old. Prior to that, we had to orchestrate and encourage nearly everything that came out of her mouth--words did not come easy to her so most were not spontaneous. If she wanted something and she could say it, we waited for her to say it. About the only self-talk I can remember from her early years was repeating, "Mowgli! Mowgli! Come back!" to comfort herself when she was extremely upset. Up until the time we put her on a gluten-free, casein-free diet, she had no self-talk.

About six months into the diet, I noticed she began reciting her favorite lines from videos during pretend play. In fact, when I think about it, the only times I have heard Pamela talk to herself was during pretend play. Even when learning to do difficult tasks, she does not talk herself through them. Nor does she talk to herself when looking for something lost. When she needs help, she comes and talks to me, but I hardly ever observe Pamela talk to herself, even though her social and language abilities are at ages in which self-talk is the greatest in typical children.

Most children speak to themselves during nearly any kind of activity: pretend play, doing artwork, building things, working on academics, or falling asleep. In fact, 20 to 60 percent of the language of children between the ages of 3 and 10 is private talk. Vygostky believed that it "seems to grow from our history of supportive social interaction in the zone of proximal development" (page 76). Children incorporate their dialogs with more experienced guides during scaffolding into their private talk. As they mature in problem solving, self-talk lowers its volume to whispers then to silent moving lips to inner speech.

Think about it! When do we adults talk to ourselves the most? When we are solving a problem or looking for our keys (*ahem* which happens more frequently as Momheimer's sets in). And, even when we are not talking to ourselves aloud, adults have that inner speech flowing through our minds most of the time. I even compose blog posts in my mind while I am doing the dishes!

According to Vygotsky's theory, the whole purpose of private talk is self-regulation--"the central means through which children take over the support provided by others, turn it toward the self, and use it to guide and control their own thinking and behavior" (page 77). I do believe that we all self-regulate our behaviors by more than just self-talk. We regulate our emotions in many ways: jiggling keys or shaking your leg when nervous, rocking and hugging yourself when extremely upset, giving a high five when excited, chewing the back of a pen when bored, or slamming the door when angry. Autistic children often regulate themselves through their sensory channels. A dear friend's daughter started flapping recently because of her extreme excitement over a pending family vacation. I reassured her that her daughter very wisely recognized her need to calm down her intense feelings by flapping, which is far better than a meltdown.

Charlotte Mason does not dwell on self-talk too much. However, because she encouraged dialog with children about all sorts of things including character flaws and habit formation, I do believe she understood the concept of self-talk allowing children to regulate themselves. Volume 5 of her books is full of examples of using dialog to influence thinking and behavior.

In short, if your child talks to herself while doing math, it is okay! If you talk to yourself while teaching yourself to crochet, it is okay. If you start answering yourself back . . . well . . . let's not go there!

Move Over Baby Alive!

This morning, we spent two hours at the Living History Encampment at Camp Bob Cooper. People dressed in Revolutionary Era costumes manned twenty-three stations, where they displayed primitive skills, crafts, and demonstrations. The South Carolina Legislature designated February 27 as General Francis Marion Memorial Day. Part of Mel Gibson's fictional character in the movie The Patriot was loosely based (and exaggerated) upon Francis Marion, or the Swamp Fox, a revolutionary war hero known for his guerrilla warfare tactics. He is so popular in these parts that they hold annual symposiums and paint murals to commemorate his engagements.

We met some homeschooling friends there: David headed in his own direction, and Pamela and I explored together. David learned some interesting facts at a Carolina trading post, where the interpreter pointed out a historical document that will be a great supplement when we hit the Colonial Era in American history: A New Voyage to Carolina by John Lawson. David enjoyed being part of the action: he threw an ax, carried buckets of water with a yoke on his shoulder, wielded weaponry like a grenade and swords, learned about making stinky soap (no wonder they bathed only twice a year), and observed them firing a tennis ball from cannon. Pamela and I flitted from fire starting and a British officer encampment to looms, weaving, and woodcarving. She enjoyed sensory aspects such as feeling the different kinds of fur (buckskin, deer, rabbit, etc.), touching musket balls (recalling Pa making bullets in the Big Woods), and running her fingers along the pretty beads.

I enjoyed learning about British coins they had on display: copper coins like the farthing (1/4 pence), ha'pence (1/2 pence), pence, tuppence (2 pence), thruppence (3 pence); silver coins like half a shilling (6 pence) and a shilling (12 pence); and a gold crown (5 shillings). We also learned that the idea of a dollar came from the Spanish pieces of eight. The coin was soft enough to cut. You literally cut it in half to make a half dollar and in quarters to make a quarter of a dollar. The term buck came from the practice of treating a buckskin like a dollar when cash ran short. Pamela signed up for the militia and received an enlistment bonus in Continental cash (which was worthless at the time).

The highlight of the afternoon was making a cornhusk doll, which turned out to be an RDI-like activity. The lady making Pamela's doll was not as wordy and full of stories as the other one and suited Pamela perfectly. She explained to Pamela each step of the process as she put on the arms, skirt, scarf, belt, and bonnet. She waited very patiently for Pamela to do her part and I did as much nonverbal scaffolding and referencing as I could while helping Pamela figure out what to do.

The dollmaker even asked Pamela to hold down the string with her finger. I was glad because Pamela did not mind the doll's wetness for they cannot work with a dry husk. I did not capture it in the photos, but Pamela wore a sweet smile on her face because she was so thrilled to have her very own cornhusk doll. She even waited for the lady to make two dolls before it was her turn!

Another thing I liked about the dollmaker was her kindness. She was very sweet to Pamela, sensing her quiet, gentle nature. The next child in line was a boy who wanted a boy doll. The dollmaker had not made one yet, but she improvised by making two legs and a cape, which, of course, the boy turned into an 18th century flying super hero.

Pamela's new doll needs to dry a couple of days. She named her Charlotte. Why Charlotte? Well, that was the name of Laura's first rag doll named Charlotte!

We joined some friends for lunch on the lake and spent much of the afternoon outdoors watching the birds and basking in the sun. You would think that was enough socialization for one day. But no, we pigged out on shrimp, oysters, and chili at a neighbor's house for dinner. Our neighbor is also gluten-free, so they even had Pamela friendly pretzels and brownies.

Leap Year: Then and Now

Pamela has been anticipating today for a very long time. Not long after the last February 29 (in 2004), Pamela fell in love with calendars. Her interest started with figuring out Roman numerals because movie credits always list the year that way. How did she figure it out? She googled it, of course! Before long, Pamela began googling calendars and became interested in the fourteen kinds of calendars: seven common years and seven leap years, each starting on a different day of the week. Then, she began googling the Chinese astrological signs and memorized the years that go with the twelve animals. She often carries around a Beanie Babie rat because 2008 is the year of the rat!

Then, I began thinking about how far Pamela has come since the last leap year!

• In 2004, Pamela was working her way through Making Math Meaningful Level 3, and now she is halfway through Level 6. I recently discovered she can multiply a single-digit times a double digit in her head.
  
• We did nature studies by watching the birds and animals at a local lake in Minnesota and now we watch critters in our backyard here in Carolina.
  
• In 2004, we were heavily involved in a wonderful homeschooling co-op, but I floundered how to implement Navigating the Social World, which was too behavioristic for our needs. Today, we have been happily making strides in applying a lone ranger version of Relationship Development Intervention.
  
• In 2004, we were stalled in our program for language therapy because the computer died and were still practicing the repetitive sentences and questions (page 9), which was at the beginning of the second unit of language. Pamela had learned (in a nutshell, six basic sentences and questions with no action verbs). Now, we are at the beginning of the third unit of language and Pamela can communicate her thoughts very well!
  
• Most conversations centered around very repetitive, high-interest topics in 2004. Now, Pamela still falls back on old favorites but can also converse about a variety of things.
  
  Sample Conversation from 2004
  Pamela: What does Lady have?
  Me: Lady has some spaghetti. What does Tramp have?
  Pamela: Tramp has some water. Where is Tramp?
  Me: Tramp is at Lady's house. What color collar does Tramp have?
  Pamela: Tramp has a red collar.
  
  Sample Conversation from Today
  Me: "What are we celebrating today?"
  Pamela: "Today we are celebrating leap year."
  Me: "What are we going to do?"
  Pamela: "We are going to a Mexican restaurant in Sumter."
  Me: "How many people are going?"
  Pamela: "Five people are going because Baby Alive is coming."
  
  Pardon the quick rabbit trail, but this picture of Baby Alive and Tiptoe shows off a BEAUTIFUL dress that a fellow RDI/CM friend and blogger gave to Pamela for Valentine's Day. Penny's very talented mother sewed this adorable dress! Pamela did some Snoopy dancing and victory lapping when she opened the envelope with this dress.
  
• Pamela kept a journal in which she used very simple, repetitive language in 2004. She made many grammatical and syntactical errors in her writing. To show the difference in her writing, I went through her old journal and discovered something startling! Unbeknownst to me, she has gone back through her old journal to make corrections! Talk about owning your learning!
  This example shows how much Pamela has progressed in personal pronouns. When speaking, she occasionally talks in the third person--she always talked in the third person back in 2004. Notice how she corrected "We" to "I" because the card game she is talking about is Solitaire on her Dad's work laptop! If you click the picture, you will see a larger version and should see other corrections she has made to the original.You can see how Pamela inserted missing words with proper editing marks! I also see signs of erasing.Pamela made major revisions here--look carefully for the gray smudges. She fixed everything from past tense to noun-verb agreement, incorrect pronouns to spelling errors.
  
• In 2004, Pamela could not do typed narrations of a book one chapter at a time. I will close with what she wrote about Chapter 2 of Miracles on Maple Hill. I made no corrections, so this piece, written at a fourth grade level, is pure Pamela:
  

Mr. Chris is wearing some overalls, pants, and, sweater. He is riding an orange tractor. Mrs Chris is wearing a white apron and the shoes. She has a house. The house has some trees, grass, mailbox, front porch, and porch. Marley has a broken car. Mr. Chris sees an orange tractor. Mr. Chris and Marley are driving an orange tractor. They feel happy. They are eating and washing. Marly, Mr. Chris, Mrs Chris, and Joe are in the kitchen. They are eating some food. They are washing some dishes. Sugar camp has some syrups, trees, snow, and cabins. Mr. Chris is going to sugar camp. Marly is going to Grandma’s house. Marly sees Grandma’s house. The house looks old. Marly feels sad. Marley is going home. They feel happy. Grandma’s house has some trees, grass, broken porch, and small house.

Preparing for Literacy

I am so excited I feel a victory lap coming on! This is the last post about Chapter 2 of Awakening Children's Minds. Plus, I have finished half of my first presentation for the Charlotte Mason Conference from June 11-14, 2008. Boiling Springs or bust! Be there or be square!

I prepared my children for literacy without even thinking about it or trying. My children saw my husband and I reading, typing on the computer, writing Christmas cards, etc. I took a label maker and made labels for everything in Pamela's room. I did not actively teach her to read them but thought it educational to have them there. We always had plenty of books in the house for adults and children, supplemented by trips to the library. I read aloud picture books to the children before bedtime. Both of them taught themselves to sight read in very different ways!

Pamela has always loved videos. We put them up in the closet so that she would have to tell us which one she wanted. That caused major tantrums sometimes, but she did pick up words that way. In fact, she picked up sight words that way, unbeknownst to me. One day, when she was five years old, I noticed her matching video cassettes to video cassette boxes. What surprised me was that she could match the right video to the right box, even if the video cassette featured only words. So, I wrote down the names of different video titles on a piece of paper and she read them to me! This was my very language-deficient, autistic child reading, and I did not lift a finger.

When David was two years old, we bought him a wooden alphabet puzzle for Christmas. He taught himself his alphabet by holding up a piece and asking, "Wha' dis?" I began homeschooling Pamela when David was three-years old. Since he was so young and wiggly and active, I let him be a la masterly inactivity and focused my efforts on Pamela. Again, unbeknownst to me, while I was working with Pamela, he sometimes stayed busy typing Dr. Seuss books into computer software that highlighted each word and read it aloud. By the time he turned four, he was reading simple picture books, and I did not lift a finger.

So, when I read the following quote by Laura Berk, my response was, "Well, DUH!"

Children can become competent readers and writers without being trained, pushed, or goaded into literacy learning in early childhood . . . Young children are enthusiastic and self-confident about learning and who achieve at their best in the early grades have acquired literacy-relevant knowledge informally--through exposure to books and other reading materials at home, in preschoool, and in child-care environments; through observing adults reading and writing in everyday life; and especially through narrative conversation (page 62).

Here are three points Charlotte Mason made about emerging literacy that dovetail nicely:

• "Reading presents itself first amongst the lessons to be used as instruments of education, although it is open to discussion whether the child should acquire the art unconsciously, from his infancy upwards, or whether the effort should be deferred until he is, say, six or seven, and then made with vigour" (Page 199).
• "But, as a matter of fact, few of us can recollect how or when we learned to read: for all we know, it came by nature, like the art of running; and not only so, but often mothers of the educated classes do not know how their children learned to read. 'Oh, he taught himself,' is all the account his mother can give of little Dick's proficiency" (Page 200).
• "Let the child alone, and he will learn the alphabet for himself: but few mothers can resist the pleasure of teaching it; and there is no reason why they should, for this kind of learning is no more than play to the child, and if the alphabet be taught to the little student, his appreciation of both form and sound will be cultivated. When should he begin? Whenever his box of letters begins to interest him. The baby of two will often be able to name half a dozen letters; and there is nothing against it so long as the finding and naming of letters is a game to him" (Page 201-202).

Clearly, children do reach an age in which educators will begin reading instruction for those who have not already picked it up. Charlotte Mason recommends not earlier than six years old. However, drilling very young children who are not in the zone for literacy destroys interest in reading.

I have found many parallels between the writings of Laura Berk and Charlotte Mason, but the section on dialogic reading with preschool- and Kindergarten-aged children contains major differences! Laura recommends that the adult select picture books with limited text to allow the child to become the storyteller. Charlotte Mason did not require any narrations of a child that young but listened to any freely offered. She preferred literature with "tales of the imagination, scenes laid in other langs and other times, heroic adventures, hairbreadth escapes, delicious fairy tales" (page 152). Laura believes that "adult behavior--warmth, dramatic quality, and attempts to get the child to participate actively" (page 63) fosters attention, while Charlotte believed that living books read in short lessons captured attention. In fact, she warned against the "dangers of personal magnetism" in a Kindergarten teacher:

No other personality out of book, picture, or song, no not even that of Nature herself, can get at the childeren without the mediation of the teacher. No room is left for spontaneity or personal initiation on their part (page 188).

On which side of the issue do I fall? I end up doing both, based upon my objectives. When Pamela reads living books for the purpose of comprehension, learning, and narration, I go with a Charlotte Mason perspective, "We narrate, and then we know." However, when we are working on our relationship objectives or the association method for her language issues, we follow the dialogic reading described by Laura Berk.

Winter Jam

This is not a post about the latest GF/CF recipe for berries. And, it is not about an ice storm hitting our small town, causing a massive traffic jam. Last night, Pamela headed to the most unlikely of places you might meet an autistic teen: a very loud rock concert! Last week, the youth pastor had asked me to chaperon a trip to Winter Jam in Columbia. I had sense enough NOT to ask Pamela if she wanted to go because of her highly sensitive hearing. I made plans for her to stay with my parents across the street until Steve came home from work. Pamela made other plans.

Yesterday morning, Pamela announced she wanted to go to the concert. I explained to her that rock music is very loud, and I was worried about her ears. She still wanted to go. I frantically ran around town, hitting the local hardware and sporting goods stores for ear protection. My dad loaned me his headphones for his tinnitus. Then, I emailed some of my Christian friends to pray that Pamela would enjoy herself before we headed out the door.

At first, I was worried. We had a small crowd: four boys and a lone girl (Pamela). Other kids we knew were going to the concert on their own. We got a little turned around in Columbia but only lost about 15 minutes to driving around the industrial part of town cluelessly. We stopped at Wendy's for dinner. The line was so long that the boys balked to a nearby Subway, but Pamela was adamant--she was not budging! We faced another huge line, waiting to get in at the Colonial Center. The boys again balked to another entrance. Pamela again stay committed to the line in which she stood. Having cell phones allowed us to split up. Then, it took us forever to find seats. The place was packed with 15,000 in attendance! The picture above is Pamela's expression as we were walking into the arena. Here is what we saw when we walked into the upper level of seating:

We arrived late and did not catch much of Mandisa. Since we have never watched even one episode of American Idol, we were not all that disappointed. As we enjoy listening to WMHK, we were already familiar with Newsong. You can see in the picture above that Pamela smiled her way through Newsong!

Then came the act that was nearly a show-stopper for me, Skillet. I have never listened to metal. I have never liked metal, even if it is full armor of God metal. They were true headbangers, screeching, raspy, ULTRA-LOUD. After one song, I figured out why they named their band Skillet: after one song, you feel like you hit your head with a skillet. I came up with some more names for the band: Tylenol, Motrin, Ibuprofin, Aspirin. To top that, a young teeny bopper behind me let loose a piercing, shrill, tea-kettle scream that went right through my teeth about once a minute. And, as you can see in the picture below, the band had plenty of EVEN-LOUDER pyrotechnics to wow the audience even more. I posted a picture of Skillet's drummerette because my dear husband Steve bought a set of drums for Christmas, beating everything from rock to Mariachi music.



How did Pamela handle Skillet? Pictures speak louder than words! I offered her the ear protection, but she preferred the organic kind, her fingers. In spite of the loud music, she decided to stay through the entire thing, pyrotechnics and all. So, *I* donned the ear plugs and tolerated Skillet much better after that!


Pamela did not leave the arena during the intermission. She did give her fingers a break, but they did go back to work with BarlowGirl, whom she enjoyed with her bright smile. In spite of their metal-like moments, I like BarlowGirl! The three sisters have beautiful voices that blend well with sibling resonance. Even when the drums are crashing and the guitars are throbbing, they still sing in their sweet, haunting voices. In the very last song, the female guitar playing from Skillet joined them on stage, but I tolerated it because their vocals carry the day!

My absolute favorite act was MercyMe. Until the concert, I had no idea how many quality MercyMe songs I really like. I took this picture of Pamela during her favorite song from the concert, "I Can Only Imagine." My favorite moments in the concert were when the lead singer led the audience in singing I Love You Lord by Laurie Klein a cappella and let the audience repeat it on their own to end it. They closed the concert with "I Can Only Imagine" which was quiet enough in the last chorus to hear the entire audience singing along. In fact, MercyMe felt like a sing along because the audience joined the band on nearly every single song. You can see from the picture of Mercy Me below that we did not have the greatest seats, but the sound definitely carried.





Pamela told us today that she wants to attend other concerts. And, she mentioned she has a headache, too. It sounds like she is suffering from Skilletitus.