Luckily, learning disabilities have been ruled out as far as Lila's teacher is concerned. This is a teacher who is very experienced and considered to be The Best. I believe her. There are concerns about her focus and attention but that is something we have come to expect. Preemies rarely escape it. So far, Lila is expected to mainstream without instructional support. I pray this continues.
Lila has done very well over the first half of the school year. She is on grade level and continues to move forward at a pace that is closing that ominous GAP. I must restate that Lila's class is a very academic and old class. These kids can read, not the three letter word reading, read real books kind of reading. Lila is not there. She is still sounding out leveled readers. I am proud of her regardless.
The last round of testing put Lila far above the grade level benchmarks in reading. She is asked to perform certain skills in a minutes time. Lila never made one error when naming her letters, their sounds or segmenting phonemes. However, she is hanging at low average when compared to her class. Did I mention these kids can read?! She has mastered all the sight words for Kindergarten - yippee! I am really proud of her for this. She is starting to write and put all of her skills together. However, she is slow. She always needs extra time and extra instructions/examples. We hope she will grow out of this but realize it might be who she is.
Math seems to be her weakness. She still struggles when counting items. Lila doesn't use her strategies like crossing out the pictures as she counts. There isn't a lot of drive to make sure she has the right answer. She also hasn't acquired my favorite strategy, "Is this answer reasonable?" Boy, can that solve half of your problems in elementary math. Of course, one has to have drive in order to use this strategy. It is all too easy to write an answer and move on.
After leaving the conference, I have a bunch of mixed feelings swirling around in my head. Yes, I rejoice that she is on grade level, doing what she should be doing. Do I wish she was at the top of her class? Absolutely, it is who I am. I see how easy school is for Savannah, the respect she has earned by the teachers for her academics and gentle, sweet behavior. I wish the same for my other two. I know their roads are different but I wish a love and ease of learning for all of my children.
It is the low average thing that gets me. After all the work (both at school and at home) Lila puts into her learning, I just wish she would hang solidly in the top 50 percentile. Where do these Kindergartner's come from? How is it that they can read Magic Tree house books or a picture books to the entire class with ease and fluency? Why are these the kids Lila is up against?
It was so much easier to be the parent of the Magic Tree house reader. . .
I love Lila just to same. The worry just eats me alive. It really does.
I was looking for a picture to end this post with and came across this. It reminded me that report cards aren't what make strong bonds. Academics don't make you a good friend. I am proud to say that I would want Lila to be my friend. She loves deeply, laughs hard and is very sensitive to other people and their needs.
Here she is loving her buddy who came back to visit after moving away last summer.
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