That's not completely true. Or, really, true at all. She is reading. She's just not very fluent or confident. She needs more help and practice. She's too far along for the skills I have, but not far enough along for me to say, "oh, more practice and she'll be fine!"
She is making spelling mistakes reminiscent of my sister Bevin. It could be a long elementary school career.
So she qualified, for whatever reason, for Title One reading services at school. Now, I'm sure I've said before that I have total and complete confidence in her teacher, Anne. I have heard the rumor that next year she will be with either Anne or a new teacher who comes with just as an amazing resume and reputation. Anne "gets" her and so I'm hoping for Anne, but either way, I think we'll be ok.
And she does amazing math and soaks up content like a sponge. She just can't decode. As much as this baffles me, I don't have blinders on. I know we need to get this done immediately. There is no more time to wait and see. This summer is going to be important.
So she qualified for Title One.
The first place I taught, Henry Elementary downtown, every student in the school qualified for Title One, but in a school of 550+, we had one Title One teacher. So how they got their "services" done for the year was by commandeering your classroom for a week and a half and showing Bugs Bunny cartoons all day and yelling at your kids to shut up. I'm not kidding.
The second place I taught was a for-profit school that didn't take government money so that it didn't have to follow the rules.
The third place I taught was a Catholic school in southwest city, and Jody was the Title One teacher. She was SO GOOD. She knew her stuff and did her best for those kids and it helped. She left after two years for a posh private school.
The last place I taught, St. Pius V, had a Title One teacher who was a tad quirky, but who was focused and excellent as well. I was in the middle school at that point and none of my kids qualified for services, but I knew her by reputation.
So I figured it can't be as bad as Henry, and maybe it could be as good as one of the others. It's an after school program, on Mondays only, until 4:45. That's an hour and fifteen minutes. One title one teacher and a group of trained volunteers, the letter said. I replied that yes, Sophia could go. Hey, anything helps, right? I wrote on the form, though, that I would have to pick her up early two of the Mondays due to girl scouts. Yesterday was one of those Mondays.
I walk in at 4:15 and all the kids--lots of them--are on the rug. One woman is sitting in a chair and droning on. Volunteers are ringing the circle, looking hopeful but bored. I explain I have to take Sophia. The teacher doesn't even acknowledge me. Lovely start. I get Sophia into the car and between the school and home, I find out that in the 45 minutes since school let out, they have:
*Had a snackIf I were in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, steam would have been coming out of my ears. I looked at the papers she had--it was way more advanced than she was, and they were working on the main idea of a paragraph.
*Run around
*Made nametags
*Sat in a circle and talked about what they were going to do today
Sophia doesn't need help with main idea. You read her a paragraph and she'll design sets for the musical adaptation of the paragraph. She can listen to Tolkein and CS Lewis and Twain and follow the story without a problem. She can't decode words. We're fixing the wrong problem.
Now, it was the first meeting. Sure. Maybe something more will happen next week. But somehow I doubt it. And if nothing more happens, I'm not wasting her time. She could be playing with the girls on the block instead of wasting more time at school. Seriously. She could be WATCHING BUGS BUNNY CARTOONS in my living room for all the good this looks like it will do.
I'm thinking about what I'm going to do this summer, and I have a conference set up with Anne for Thursday. If it were math, I'd be all over this. I know how math works, how brains work with math, and how brains that don't work with math, work with math. But reading? It's a mystery to me. It's too easy for me. But I can't let this slip through my fingers.
8 comments:
Well, I'm sure you can help her a lot more than you think you can. Just lots of repetition of the same books will help with the decoding. Seeing the same word over and over will help with sight words, which will lead to connecting sight words to new words when she sees them. That's some decoding. Phonics is important too, but I can only say that the most success my kids have had is just lots and lots of patient reading. Like, I read one sentence and you read the next one.
I wonder, (have you?) do you think the Montessori approach has anything to do with it? Because of the theory of allowing kids to discover in their own time, maybe Sophia is not really interested so she doesn't work on it as much as she does the things she likes. That is natural for everyone, child or adult alike. It sounds like the teachers are pretty flexible so maybe you could talk to them about giving her more time each day to spend on reading.
You're right - that program is not off to a good start. I know Sylvan is REALLY expensive, but maybe you could find a private tutor to come to your house or meet at the library for once or twice a week for an hour. I think that would probably be about $25 an hour which is a little more than half of what Sylvan charges (I think).
Have you ever tried books on tape? You can even make your own with books you have at home, and then you can read the words REALLY SLOWLY so that she can follow along easily.
I hope you get it figured out. I know it must be frustrating!
(((hugs)))
her school may not be a true montessori that way--there are daily things students must do (math, reading, etc). I'm not a fan of sylvan, having been a private tutor myself. I'm considering kumon...she definitely will not be much of a phonics girl (as a former reading teacher, I know the strongest readers use phonics and sight words...but whatever works).
i've got the same issue with my girl ... well, no, not the same one, a similar issue anyway. she's going to Kennard next year so has to be reading at 3rd grade level by August. she reads at a decent 1st grade level, but doesn't pay attention and reads words as the wrong word and transposes letters and gets frustrated by words with more than 6 letters. i was always so far ahead that i have no idea how to bridge this ... i have no idea how much is normal 1st grader & how much is is our gene cesspool expressing itself. i don't see how summer school is going to help. i'm almost frantic about it.
maybe what this comment should say is, maybe we should share a reading tutor. they figure out the reading stuff, we drink coffee. or wine.
I have an alert out to the friend of mine who tutors to see what she thinks. I'll let you know, seriously.
Ugh - how frustrating.
It is so hard to see your child struggle. I hope you are able to find a system that works. Has she ever been tested for dyslexia or other reading challenges?
Oh, she's dyslexic, no doubt about that one. We haven't had her tested because we have seen good progress this year and Anne is on top of things--I simply have looked up from my postpartum haze and realized she's not as far as I want her to be. I would rather not test her, frankly, for all sorts of reasons, and she's only about a half year behind instead of the full 2 years she needs to be in order to truly be diagnosed. We can do this...I just wish we didn't have to!
there's an intensive reading program sort of through SLU that is offered in the summer.. don't know if it is individualized enough to address her specific issues. it's also expensive! but, fyi, i have the info if you are interested.
Good luck! With a good teacher and a good mom, she's got a good chance of figuring this what will work for her.
Mary (Avery's mom)
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