Progress Update:
Composition and Reading Aidan has really gone to town with story writing. He loves it so much that I get tired before he does. Even though his choice of topics and words are limited he has made progress in fluency, maybe because of the repetition, in fact. I'd like to extend his choice of topics and maybe try to get him to journal or narrate. But right now he's so happy I want to encourage that part of it. I think he's finally reading at a mid-first-grade level or something of the kind.
He has started to try to copy out some of the stories either by hand or on the computer. He is getting better at handwriting -- more decisive and functional.
Math Aidan has been doing addition on the abacus. He can count to the answer but I don't think it really makes sense to him because it's not grounded in concrete circumstances. If he had to add in real life I think he would pick it up a lot faster.
Reading: Aidan was able to read (with help) the first page of the Little Red Hen (Harriette Treadwell's Literary Primer on the sidebar. He also read the first short sentences in the Christian Brothers Primer.
Physical Therapy: The PT has been working on training Aidan to lead with his left knee, and also to loosen up his upper body. Once his left trunk and leg and arm are "recruited" and engaged individually and in cooperation rather than as a stiff unit, he does so much better with his stride than he's done in the past.
Occupational Therapy: The OT has been working on stretching the muscles and tendons in his left hand. She also has him work with his pincer grip. I have some massaging work to do with him at home.
She gave him a coloring book with vehicles in it for his birthday and he was very occupied with it for days and took great pride in working on it.
Daily Life: We have been going to the beach most days and I think walking in the water and on the sand is helping retrain his gait and develop core strength. Also we are trying to walk most days and pushing his wheelchair uphill is quite heavy work and good for strengthening.
I'd like to modify some of the stretching and stability exercises I'm doing to suit him.
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Now that it is summer we probably won't do too much school for a while. I'd like to try some of the Catholic readers around the house on him. Also, I think it would be good to work through some of the arithmetic primers online with him.
