Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Reading and writing and math... oh, my!

Things are going quite well here. Isabel is not reading fluently yet, but is getting proficient with phonics. So three-letter words, look out! Belle can decode you all.

Handwriting is coming along very well, too, although I've noticed that Isabel has some trouble forming certain aspects of letters - specifically, upper-right to bottom-left diagonals. It's extremely subtle, so subtle that if I weren't right with her, watching her actually work the pencil on paper as she tried to form the letters, I probably wouldn't have noticed the pattern. So I've been leading some painting and follow-the-leader activities that simulate this same upper-right to bottom-left diagonal motion and, sure enough, it's a gross motor issue as well as fine motor. If we had the child in activities that used her arms as well as her legs, we probably would have noticed it sooner. Well, not true - it hasn't proven to be an issue in gymnastics, and they do use their arms in gymnastics. She's the T-Rex of athletes, what with her main outlets being the arm-less soccer and Irish dancing, though, so it's easy to miss arm issues. But, I digress.

Now, when Belle was a baby, she had arm tremors and generalized weakness until she was about 8 months old. It was the only holdover from her brain hemmorhage. Those issues seemingly resolved, but now I'm noticing this difficulty with the diagonals. I think it's most likely related. We have a neurology follow up in the next few weeks and I'm going to bring it up to Dr. K- and request a developmental evaluation. I don't think this is a major issue, but I want to work on it. We should probably also check to see if she has adequate arm strength, too, since that was a problem in her infancy. Still, not too shabby for a kid who's missing nearly half of her frontal lobe.

Math has been fun here lately. We bought an abacus and are working sums like crazy. The abacus seems to 'click' for Isabel in a way that the Cuisenaire Rods haven't. We still use the rods and like them, and they're really useful for demonstrating concepts, but Isabel likes the abacus more.

We've also been doing reviews of basic concepts - shapes, colors, tracing, cutting and pasting, etc. Blah. It's boring, but necessary. Belle doesn't find it boring, so that's good.

Our other maqjor topic right now is reptiles/lizards. This month's science group was on frogs, and that was very fun. The kids loved watching the frog eat. I'll be hitting the zoo and science museum with the kids in the next couple of weeks, to learn more about reptiles and lizards.