A Year of Difference....

When my middle son started first grade this year, he could barely form letters. At a conference just after the beginning of school, his teacher put a paper in front of me, a math test, it contained pages of scribbles with some random legible numbers scattered throughout. She gently said, "I'm just.... not even sure how to grade this."

This conference was  no surprise at all. In fact, it was a HUGE relief that his teacher saw everything I had been seeing. I had been saying for a year to anyone who would listen that there was a problem-- That my son couldn't make letters well or in some cases, at ALL.  That he wasn't producing any real work.... that his skills had stagnated during the kindergarten year. 

In kindergarten though, (in my experience, anyway) unless your child comes in with an IEP or shows a very, VERY obvious MAJOR issue, it's so much a "wait and see" game because the kids come in at so many different levels anyway and some kids are just late bloomers. So we waited and saw.... and things didn't get any better.  In hindsight, I should have been a squeakier wheel that year... insisted on more OT consults, requested a team, gotten him evaluated back then on my own. I knew there were problems and my gut has never been wrong any of my boys' issues. When will I learn to just go with it?

So I sent him off to first grade in August and quietly waited for the other shoe to drop, which it did about three weeks into school with that first conference.  After that and a subsequent evaluation in which we learned he has processing deficits that affect his writing, we basically started from scratch. He got pull-out help with the resource teacher to help him learn to write out whole words and eventually sentences and longer sentences. We worked tirelessly at home on his homework working on correctly forming letters and developing strategies to keep him on task and not get too frustrated at this skill which does NOT come easily for him. We erased, we started over... we practiced, practiced, practiced. His teacher had him redo things when they weren't his best work... she pushed him, which is what he very much needed.  

I am happy to say that writing is finally something that doesn't completely overwhelm him. He doesn't have to think through every stroke of every letter. The amount of progress S made this year is amazing.  I had a conference with his teacher last week and he is caught up to where he needs to be and ready for second grade.  Interestingly, now that he is writing more, we have learned he he is a pretty great speller, which I didn't really expect!

As I was leaving, his teacher said to me, "I really want you bring him back to visit in ten years or so because I just can't wait to see what he ends up doing because I know it's going to be something really interesting and amazing!" Isn't it wonderful that a teacher can start out a year with a student who produces the kind of work you see in the top picture and still manages to see the kind of potential that those deficits are masking?  I love that.

When I am deciding which pieces of my boys' schoolwork to save, I try to only keep work that shows measurable progress or mastery of some new skill (well, and anything sentimental or that starts "Dear Mommy...." ;)   Needless to say, his "keep" pile this year is pretty big. :o) I am so proud of him!

Here's work that came home yesterday....

What a difference a school year makes!