Monday observations

Julia had OT this morning and Annie tried to get her to sequence a series of dots. Annie had prepared a pattern staring with two dots and progressing to five dots. Julia was supposed to jump from dot to dot according to the pattern. Julia memorized the four-dot pattern and then did only that. Annie changed her tactic and asked Julia to make a pattern, starting with two dots and progressing to 6. Then, they "read" and tapped the drawn pattern.

All this took almost 45 minutes and our entire OT time. I think that Annie was exhausted by the time it was over.

What I noticed:

This was a more math-related task than literature based, so Julia was not really interested in doing it. She also perceived it as hard. She said this immediately. And so, Julia's focus shift quicker then the bunnies that disappear into our garden, and kept shifting to the mirror, to toys in the room, to her shoes. Then, she had to go to the bathroom. She peed but I don't know how much she really needed to at that moment and how much she wanted to get out of the task. She took a long time in the bathroom, like she usually does, and I got frustrated with her. I didn't want her to waste her precious time with Annie. I told her of my frustration.

Back in Annie's room, I told Julia to focus and Julia tried very hard and with a lot of reminders and help, she was able to do the sequencing task. She was very interested in my happiness over her accomplishment of the task.

What I see:
-Julia can focus
-When Julia perceives a task is hard for her to do, she doesn't want to focus on and does not focus
-When Julia doesn't focus, she can't do the task and her perception of something being too hard for her to do is reinforced
-But Julia wants to please me
-To please me, Julia will attempt, with support and reminders, a task she perceives is too hard
-When Julia accomplishes the task, she wants lots of praise from me and is clearly pleased with herself.

If all she had to learn in school this year was how to read, we would be in a very good place. Our reading relationship has been building very well. Julia will usually, almost always, acquiesce to my directions to work on words and work on a book. I feel that she trusts my teaching of reading. If this trust can be transferred to her teachers, I think she will soar.

But then there is math and everything that is related to math, including patterns and logic. It is hard for her -- No part of math thinking comes naturally, and I mean not counting, not telling time, not measuring. And so, this needs to be worked on the same way that we've worked on reading.

But I don't know how yet.