H1 - crossing the midline

I think by now most of you know about H1's reading. Her emergent dyslexia is coming to be - not so "emergent" more like "hello, here I am."

As she progresses in her reading, which is coming very fast. As she progresses in her spelling - (she was getting 2 out of 8 right - to last Friday a perfect score with both challenge words spelt correctly.

I get this email from her teacher
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Hello! I wanted to let you know something interesting about yesterday's spelling test. As you saw on the test she brought home, H1 scored 8/8 +2. However, the first time she took the test, she had the sheet of paper turned around and the red line and 3 circles on the right side instead of the left. She wrote the numbers 1-8 on the right side of the red line and then wrote every spelling word completely backwards, starting at the red line and going to the left. Every word was spelled correctly, though.

For example:
siof enu 1.

I later asked her to write the words again because she had the paper turned around the first time. The second time she wrote what I sent home yesterday.

I showed the 2 tests to (her reading teacher) and we were both surprised and also amazed that H1 was able to write them all correctly while backwards. It is interesting, though, that she didn't notice while writing them that the words looked funny. It seems like the fact that the red line was on the other side of the page is what got her confused.Have you ever seen something like this before?

Thanks for all of the work you do at home with H1. You are so dedicated to your children and a great mother!
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Ok.... hmmmm

so I got to thinking -

Hmmm - I didn't realize that. (with the red line) BUT, I have seen her completely flip them around. I see specific "sets of letters" flipped around often. ON is the most common.

What I find strange is that even after she was done, and she looked at both sets of tests, she couldn't "see" the difference? That would surprise me. I can see when she is doing it - that it happens. It is like the mirror in her head gets turned on. - But once she is made aware of it, she is able to correct it.



I tend to "hear" it - when she is reading. She will start the word from the wrong side.



The sheets that she is practicing on look like this




- and the books before were lakeshore learning writing journals, neither of which have a "red line". Our "method" is I have created a book that has a set of pages for each day - she writes out her words every day. If she just sits down and does it - she is done in under 10 minutes. And we take a spelling test, at least 3X before Friday. The "tests" (which I thought were the "most" important seem to really stress her out.) I moved from taking the test and then having her respell the words she got wrong, to always having her write them all out and then test at the end and start the day fresh the next day. Writing the words on her time line, seems less stressful.


I let her take the test by using the air spelling also at least once, and then she takes it at least 2X written out. I know the yellow dots are not where you are teaching them to start (they still start at the top) - but other than buying an expensive handwriting program - this is what I am working with. (I am debating buying the schoolhouse fonts program...) From what I have been reading, the more I can enforce the handwriting that it (the handwriting) becomes less of an issue and/or stumbling block in learning to spell and read. Then they focus less on how to "draw" a letter and can focus on the "bigger" picture of the whole word. I am just happy that she is working and it is not a struggle.

So...
where to go from here. The method I have is helping her understand, read and be successful with her spelling tests. That is all good.

I spoke with my SIL, who I think, many of you know is an OT. She spoke about the concept of crossing the midline.
She gave me a host of activities. The more research I did - the more that lead me to see the issue of crossing the midline can be HUGE with ADD also. Wow - so many things are coming together... Poor crossing body midline, affects child’s handwriting and the ability to learn new academic concepts.

Children with ADD or ADHD typically have problems with cross patterning movements, as they do not feel comfortable crossing the midline of their bodies. This problem with crossing the body’s midline of the body is because the left and right sides of the brain do not fire in synchronicity and they do not communicate well with each other.



So....

Crossing the Midline, or the ability to move hands and feet across the body and the ability to coordinate hands and feet together, helps students to learn new physical skills and is also important as students learn to write and draw. Encourage children to cross the midline with these activities:

1. Wheelbarrow walking
2. Playing hand clapping games like "See-See my Playmate", "Miss Mary Mack", and "Miss Susie"
3. Learning string games like "Cat's Cradle" and "Jacob's Ladder"
4. Playing hopscotch
5. Painting on an easel or drawing with chalk on a large chalkboard or sidewalk
6. Stirring pancake batter or other ingredients in a large bowl
7. Pedaling on a tricycle or bicycle

This is something I find interesting
27. Have the students work in cursive script. It is more difficult to reverse the letter pattern in cursive writing than in manuscript printing. This strategy will encourage more muscular power control and thus a more distinctive tactile/motor pattern for each letter.


OK that's all I have time for right now. I have a lot more research to do.

H2 night issues

I think most of you know the issues we have in the past struggled with regarding, night time wetting, daytime...

down the long road to Miralax - then to nighttime dryness. He had spent the last 3 months waking up every night, almost 4-5/X to go to the bathroom. He rarely has an accident.

But - what is happening is he is sooo sleep deprived. I got a call from his teacher the other day about him punching other kids?!?!?!? This is not my H2. Everyone that knows him really well, was like - "What?!?!? H2?! So I knew it wasn't a case of just mommy wearing rose color glasses. He has always been my rule follower in school. His preschool teachers just laughed at how toe the tie he was.

Both H and I were coming down on him so hard for this. We were coming down so firmly on his defiance. Then I was going over something that has really helped H1 for another friend who is going through some ADD issues and I was rereading the sleep study issues - and this just jumped out at me

Recent research has verified that chronic poor sleep results in daytime
tiredness, difficulties with focused attention, low threshold to express
negative emotion (irritability and easy frustration), and difficulty
modulating impulses and emotions

Hello.... of course I knew this - I knew his sleep was affecting this - but somehow to see it in black and white. Needless to say - I will be calling the ped first thing on Monday to make an appt. I already had been on the phone with them a month ago - asking if there was anything I could do and they wanted me to wait it out some more, but nope - I am not going to. I know there is medication that will help with the nighttime urination and I want to give it a try. If anything perhaps just a few weeks on it can reset his clock to not have to pee so much at night and he can get sleep.

My heart just hurts remembering him, with the daytime stuff. When the dr. got down on his level and said, "H2, look at me, I want you to know this is not your fault." I remember the look on his face, like a weight was lifted from his. I remember him running across the room into my arms. I remember him looking like, 'see mom, it's really OK to love me.'

All the while, we parents, thinking we are doing the right thing by being firm... ugh.... You always read about kids getting away with murder, so we probably toe the line to being firmer, and then this happens and you feel like a failure as a parent. When your child's basic needs are not being meant (sleep - and in the previous situation health related) of course, they cannot behave. Discipline is NOT the answer. Crappy parenting is certainly not the answer. UGH.

This is the note I sent to his teacher today.

Krista -
I have done a lot of thinking regarding the issues that you brought up on Wednesday. I want you to know that I am taking this very seriously. I even went as far as to request a suggestion circle in my ECFE class, where all the parents have older child and the parent educator responds too.

First, let me say, his punching and defiant attitude when "caught" is not OK and never will be OK. I do not expect the behavior to be tolerated. I do, however, want you to be aware of a few things and hopefully it will shed some light on this.

I truly believe the root cause of this behavior is sleep deprivation. As I told you on Wednesday - Hunter is in a not so good place physically and emotionally right now. Most of this, though after taking with him and really going over the last month in detail - I believe is physical. He has not gotten a full night's sleep since prior to August. I will be setting a dr appt to hopefully get the nighttime issues under control with some medication. I don't like to go the medication route; however, we have tried behavior modification, diet changes and other natural approaches to this since August. We both know the following - but it really helped me to see it in black and white.
Recent research has verified that chronic poor sleep results in daytime tiredness, difficulties with focused attention, low threshold to express negative emotion (irritability and easy frustration), and difficulty modulating impulses and emotions

Some background:
You know (per our first conference) that Hunter has gastrointestinal issues. This spring and into summer we dealt with him wetting his pants, every 20 minutes. His behavior was off the wall erratic. Turned out his was so constipated (sorry, I cannot think of a polite way to say it) that he couldn't even feel the pain anymore. He went on Miralax for 3-4 months and was better. I explained at our first conference that he absolutely needed enough water breaks during the day to not have this occur again. We are back to accidents. I have asked him how many water breaks he gets a day and he says 2. This could also be adding to his erratic behavior. This is frustrating to me, because we had this under control, when I was in charge of what and how much he drank during the day.

At the same time that we were able to stop the Miralax, Hunter was "ready" for nighttime dryness. He has been getting himself up 4-5 times a night since before school started (mid July). This has been going on for 3+ months. I called the ped a few weeks ago thinking that this cannot be good for him, he has not gotten 2 straight hours of sleep in 2+ months (at the time of my call). The ped at that time recommended waiting it out a bit longer. With the new information about his classroom issues, I am not going to wait it out any longer.


Where to go from here. This is a list I came up with for us to work together.

Set positive expectations for behavior.

• I will reinforce that each day morning about what behavior to expect
• I would like some type of communication daily from you regarding this. It can be as simple as - he can have a card in his backpack that says it was a green (good) yellow (OK) or red (really bad) day.
• I will work on the positive reinforcement when he has "x" amount of green days. I will speak with him about what went wrong on the red days and have appropriate consequences at home.
  

Giving Hunter tools and reminding him to use them to deal with his frustration.

• We talked about making the room bigger. (He can go and push on a wall, relax, then push on the wall again.)
• Hunter is a boy, use the shoulder to shoulder method of talking to him if something has gone wrong. Do not take the no eye contact as defiance.
• Giving him lots of large motor movement. Taking away a recess will be counter productive at this point - he is already struggling to deal with out of control emotions, we both know physical activity will help that.

Making sure he is getting adequate water during the day.

• I may have him drink some type of fiber filled drink in addition to his snack.
  ( I know that juice drinks are not normally OK - but the timing of the Miralax is important, (so that he can make it to the bathroom and have enough time for his system to adjust before bed. In the morning before school would not be ideal for him - that would put him in a bad place at lunch time. Lunch time, I would be concerned that he wouldn't finish it and the school day still has 4 hours, so snack time seems to be the best time. Then he should be home, and have enough time for his system to settle before bed - so we don't exaggerated the already horrendous sleep issues.

I will be setting a dr appt to hopefully get the nighttime urination issues under control with some medication.

• I don't like to go the medication route, but I think the root cause of this behavior is sleep deprivation.
  

I hope this works for us, but most importantly, I hope we can work together to help Hunter through this. I do not think this is the developmental stage of seeing if he is going to be bad or good. There are much larger issues that need to be dealt with first. Once all those are off the board, then I think we might be able to go down that road. Let's hope that we have no need to.

Once again, thank you for meeting with me on Wednesday. I really appreciate you and all the work that you do with such a large class of kindergarteners. You are such a blessing in Hunter's life. I know that together, we can help him through this.

Don't hesitate to call me on Monday if you need/want to talk more about this. I work until Noon, but I should be home from 1PM on.

Linda

No Disney for us

See the below comment - I haven't mentioned it aloud for fear of it not working and lo and behond it is not working out.

Both Ed and I were so excited. We thought Disney might actually be within reach for us. We found cheap (relatively) plane fair and then we were going to stay at a resort on my parent's time share for $89/week. The largest cost would have been park admissions.

It would have been tight - but we figured we could make it work. After all that has gone on in our family since August 1 - we really wanted a family get away. We knew we would be spending money on it and figured out how much we could afford and it looked like it was going to work... and no dice.

None of the hotels that are within the time share are open. I am so seriously bummed about this.

how true how true how true

A friend of mine posted this on her blog -

"It's only money" works for me until we don't have it anymore. "

People who always have money have no idea the sheer amount of stress that having little money to do with can place on a person or on a family.