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  

Update without pictures

We have a new staff member and one more girl has been added to the roles. Sra Carolina is working out well as a child care worker replacing Sra Secundina.

Our new girl is Maria del Carmen. She is 10 - almost 11 - and is in third grade and a good student. She came to us with a lot of medical problems so the last couple of weeks I have been focused on taking her to appointments as well as a taking a couple of others. The infections that she had are cleared up thanks to modern medicine and morderm medicines. Now we are looking into other medical issues. We have done the priliminary stuff at Childrens Hospital and she started with a Cardiology Apt. on the 22. She is cute, bright and personable and is doing well in school.

School is starting its second month. We have 2 in first grade, 3 in second, 2 in 3rd. These girls all need a lot of supervision and help to do their homework. All our girls go to school in the public schools nearby. We also have girls in every grade from 4th to 10th. I do a lot of help with math and have mastered it up through 7th grade ' which is not high enough to to help Yanitcia with Algrbra II. We do have a group of students doing their social service work on Saturdays and they are a big help. The two in 10th grade take French as well as English and one of the teachers who comes with the girls from LaSalle, speaks French and is helping them

Tia Sue