Sunday, April 13, 2008

A few musings on Sunday

Recently I visited Evelia's teacher - Maestra Ana. This yesr she is teaching 1st grade.  The two years previous she taught 3rd and then 4th grade. She has had some of our girls who needed a lot of good support and she did well with them.  I asked her how she liked teaching 1st grade and she said it is very busy. She likes Evelia and wants to keep her in her class although Evelia has a lot of learning differences and seem to me to be functioning on about a 3 year old level.

Last Wednesday I took her to have the first part of an IQ test - by a psychologist with the Ministry of Health.  While waiting I took out some photos I had of some of the girls to show her and Guiselle (who was my assistant - helping me with Evelia who might wander away while I am paying the bill).  I was astounded that Evelia could not say the name of most of the girls!  I knew her expressive vocabulary was small but thought that after living a year with us she would be able to say their names.  So, in the next couple of days I did a little "testing" and found that she knows all the girls' names when asked to give me the picture of "Jane" or to point to one of them. So I am going to try out deemphasizing saying the answer and let her choose it by pointing and then repeating the the name after I say it.  In the year she has been with us she has not learned to say the correct name of a color when asked.  Maybe we can get further along by emphasizing a moter response (pointing).  Another very weak area for her is anything with a pencil - although she has learned to color, so that writing the answer isn't an option.  I'll keep you informed.

Many of the youth who go to St. Paul's Church are from the neighborhood so very few go on to university after high school.  Our priest, Glenda, asked me to help one young woman who is going to the U and who is struggling with English. We have set up an appointment for Wednesday at 3:30. If this works out she and I will have made one of the first steps towards having homework help at St. Paul's.

Blessings, Tia Sue  

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