13 July 2006
sibs
Yesterday, I discovered to my dismay that Five has forgotten pretty much all of the Braille he learned last year.
I was up to my ears in cooking, counter excavation, laundry, dust bunny hockey--the usual.
So I called in the regular army. First Three, then Two sat down at the study table to drill Five back into alphabetical competency.
It was a fairly complex operation. I was overseeing from behind the kitchen counter, occasionally issuing instructions, not always in dulcet tones. "No, no--have him say the letter and then say the dots that make it." "Don't forget to say 'good' when he gets one right." "What do you mean there's only 24 flashcards???"
The helping sister had to hold something up in front of Five's face so he wouldn't try to use his vision for the Braille cards, hold the card down with one hand so Five could scan it without scooting it off the table accidentally, and hold up the book with the "cheat sheet" page in the other hand so she could check to see if Five was calling out the right dots.
Five was grumpy. So were Three and Two.
So was I.
But the grumpy was laced with good humor, at least occasionally, and the increasingly frequent cry of "good" cheered us all up as we went along. And it got done. After a couple hours, Five knew it cold, and the rest of us were pretty good at it too. And the cooking got done, the dust bunnies got slammed into the boards, and the counter is still innocent of any order whatsoever.
Today, we'll review the words he used to know. I expect pretty much the same results--including the state of the kitchen counter.
I was up to my ears in cooking, counter excavation, laundry, dust bunny hockey--the usual.
So I called in the regular army. First Three, then Two sat down at the study table to drill Five back into alphabetical competency.
It was a fairly complex operation. I was overseeing from behind the kitchen counter, occasionally issuing instructions, not always in dulcet tones. "No, no--have him say the letter and then say the dots that make it." "Don't forget to say 'good' when he gets one right." "What do you mean there's only 24 flashcards???"
The helping sister had to hold something up in front of Five's face so he wouldn't try to use his vision for the Braille cards, hold the card down with one hand so Five could scan it without scooting it off the table accidentally, and hold up the book with the "cheat sheet" page in the other hand so she could check to see if Five was calling out the right dots.
Five was grumpy. So were Three and Two.
So was I.
But the grumpy was laced with good humor, at least occasionally, and the increasingly frequent cry of "good" cheered us all up as we went along. And it got done. After a couple hours, Five knew it cold, and the rest of us were pretty good at it too. And the cooking got done, the dust bunnies got slammed into the boards, and the counter is still innocent of any order whatsoever.
Today, we'll review the words he used to know. I expect pretty much the same results--including the state of the kitchen counter.
