Some statistics for her end of year report and "The Speech" progress

When typing text out of her reader, Tammy types about 4 words per minute: She still makes many mistakes, but she corrects them herself. If only I could get her to use the delete button or select and retype method more. She spends a lot of time getting the cursor in the right place, then she backspaces and only then does she type in the correction. I have never given her a computer test before, but wanted a "statistic" for her end of the year report, so that we can gauge progress next year. She thoroughly enjoyed it, and wanted a test for homework.

For her Excel test I gave her a few number to enter and to add and to change to Rand. (Our currency.) She used the autosum button with ease and went to Format, but there she got stuck. However, when I told her to click on "Cells", she immediately went to "Currency" and clicked on R.

She reads 28.5 words per minute. (Maximum score was 35 words.)

For her math's test she scored 100% for multiplication and 57% for adding with ones and tens. She knows her bonds, but she makes many mistakes with carrying over.

In October she pedaled 1.5 km at level 1 in 10 minutes. Now she pedals more than 2.5 km at level 2 in 10 minutes.

She started to stutter again....! I felt so dejected this morning when we did the Nativity puppet show, and she stammered so. (She looked happy enough?) We prayed and then had break and then I really prayed....

After break, she did some sewing before I suggested we practise her speech again. (practise spelled with an s in S.A.) She was very slow and uncertain in the beginning, but became more cheerful and self-confident as she progressed. AND SHE DID NOT STUTTER! And what's more, she did not want me to cut anything from the speech, in fact she wants to say more! Instead of saying "I enjoyed seeing the whales at Hermanus", she wants to say "I enjoyed seeing the whales in the Indian Ocean at Hermanus". Instead of saying "the story of how Jesus was born", she wants to say "the story of how Jesus, the Saviour of the world, was born."!!

Thank you, thank you God! PLEASE help Tammy on Thursday. It will be so humiliating for her to cancel the whole speech now, and it will even be worse, if it does not go well on Thursday. Please free her tongue and her mind. You can do anything!

We're back!

Tamerin did get to see whales and visited a wine farm during their holiday. Yesterday we spent a long time discussing their holiday and she wrote her diary with my help. After writing it, I suggested she copy it and get the modem started while I quickly went to the bathroom. When I came back, she had already connected to the internet, opened her blog, copied her diary inscription and published it with her own heading (albeit without a capital letter). The "big thing" is that she did all the actual blogging totally on her own! I am so proud of her.

Her reading is getting more fluent by the day. Comprehension is also improving steadily. I have not started the 1 minute reading programme again, but remembered about it today and will do so again. (Thanks for the tip Jen!)

After all the theme projects in preparation of the September holidays (Whales, Hermanus, Wine Making, Jan van Riebeeck etc.) we are back to her My Secret Unicorn. The book has helped to expand her vocabulary. Before she knew about 3 emotions: happy, sad and proud. Now she often uses "disappointed" and today "dejected"! I still let her often look up words in the dictionary e.g. today she looked up "suffering" and "wise" during Bible lesson.

Some planned projects for this term: Revision of the route to Durban as the family plan to go there again this weekend, some more history, sewing of bags for gifts, lots of physical exercise, a speech about meerkats (a type of mongoose). (The family has just got a baby Meerkat for pet.) A very special project should be to plan for a prize giving / concert evening towards the end of the school year. All I can do, is take these plans to Jesus and get guidance from Him as to what to do and when to do it. He has proved to be so faithful this year and I believe He will continue to do more miracles in Tamerin's life.

The Southern Right Whale Continues

Tamerin is still very keen to learn about the whales. I combined the facts we have learned so far into a "speech" which we are now practising - i.e. she must not only read the piece, but tell it to an audience. To do that, she had to decide which word in each sentence should be emphasised. Was I pleasantly surprised: she pointed to the main subject of each sentence! There is real understanding here. After we had underlined the main words on the first version, she had to make these words bold and colourful on the computer, before we printed the new "speech" version. Besides practising computer skills, this exerise forced her to read with attention.

After practising "telling" the facts, I asked her to form the questions on the piece. Although the questions were not grammatically correct, she had a good idea of what to ask and how to ask. I gave the answers and sometimes asked her to answer her own questions and the oral results were quite good.

Her homework for today is to type the answers to the questions on the computer. I am looking forward to see her efforts, although I know that written work is often still a problem. Nevertheless God, a big thank you for her progress here!

We have started to read for 1 minute periods and to count the words read and deduct the number of words that she did not know. She enjoys this and I think it will really help her with fluency. Thanks for the tip!