Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Homeschool

After spending most of last year jumping through hoops with the school district, only to be informed that my sweet little Lauren does not qualify for any extra help, I have decided to take matters into my own hands and give her the help she needs. They did tell me that she could do "Pioneer Reading," which is a fun name for Title 1reading, where she can get extra help learning how to decode words. But she tested very well in decoding. That isn't her issue, so I'm not sure why they thought that would be the solution.
I am blessed with a child for whom regular school just doesn't seem to sink in. She's a bright girl in many ways and is super resourceful and independent. But she pretty much hates school and does not see the value in trying to succeed with it. So, just to fill some of the educational gaps I'm having her go to school in the mornings, where she does reading and math and then she comes home to do reading and math. Right now she's getting basically no Social Studies or Science, but I think this will be time well spent. She can pick those things up later. We can't just go on thinking that the basic skills will eventually come. They need to come now and I seem to be the only one who is worried about it.
We've been going for about 3 weeks now and so far, so good. She's already come far in many respects. I couldn't be happier about the results. Hopefully she'll be ready to jump right back in by next year.
Whatever spare time I used to have has vanished, but the sacrifice right now will pay off in the long run, I'm sure.
Wish us luck!

2 comments:

Cloves said...

Good luck. It took us three years of asking before the schools got Ethan the help he needed. Unfortunately, because it took so long, he's pretty far behind. However, we have seen a lot of growth. He now has accommodations for testing and school work. And the SpEd director has special training in Dyslexia, so he's getting the specific reading help he needs.

It's so hard having a child that struggles so much with reading. I wish you the best.

Margie said...

Looking down the road some I have the result of no one knowing what to do and nothing getting done. I hope our failure has inspired you two to do something sooner. The only diagnosis CJ has so far is ADD but there has got to be something else missing in his brain connections. He just got in a school play, we'll see if it's worth it to him to bring up his grades. Good job on the home schooling. I think it's great.