Reading Troubles

Monday afternoon Grace came home and proudly handed me a white envelope.  I thought it was a note from the school PTO that I had recently joined.  NOPE....it was NOT from the PTO....it was a letter from Grace's teacher, the reading specialist and the principal, describing that Grace was extremely low in reading and qualified for a program called Title 1/LAP.  Understanding that it was to help catch up a "at risk" students in reading was all that I knew about this program.  My heart sank as I read the letter.  Feelings of guilt, sadness and anger flooded my mind.  WHY??? I was deligent to read with her this summer and I felt shame that she was struggling so badly and here I am a TEACHER!!!

I signed the note, because they needed my permission for her to recieve services, and then I emailed her teacher (Mrs. B) my questions regarding the LAP program.  A day later, I recieved one of the nicest e-mails from her teacher.  She explained that Grace was testing at the beginning of kindergarten reading level.  (I nearly cried).  Poor Grace....I had no idea....and I still have no idea what type of assessment tool was used to determine this reading level.  I may be a teacher, but most of my expertise is in special education preschool.  I can answer questions about preschool assessment tools like thde Battelle Inventory 2 and sensory profiles, but elementary assessnments are foreign to me. 

So for the school year, Grace will be pulled out of the classroom for 30 minutes a day to work on reading with a specialist and then have reading instruction from her teacher (Mrs. B) as well.  Hopefully we will learn more about what type of help they have in mind for Grace.  In the meantime its back to our phonics work, reading books, and iLs therapy.  There is a program setting for reading and memory. 

It has been difficult for me not to pick up this guilt and stress and add to the load I carry.  I keep thinking, "what if?"  which isn't good.  What if I have done more?  Why didn't I see the signs?  How did I let this happen?  BUT, I have to "let it go".  I have to focus on moving forward, focus on my blessings and focus on my children's successes.  Like Luke having a great test score, Grace being a huge help with house chores and her excellent artistic abilities and Bella being so funny and smart.  Indeed I have a house full of blessings to count and be thankful for.  It's all about getting up every morning and moving in the direction I want to go, and not letting the stresses of my life effect me in a negative way.

A Blessing

I am sitting here at the computer, starring at our NEW monitor....thank you Auntie Katie. It is AMAZING!!! What an awesome blessing today to arrive in the mail. I am so appreciative. We have been using a really old monitor that you could barely see at times. And now everything is HUGE and crystal CLEAR. Thank you.

So, my attempt to keep up 2 blogs backfired. Who was I kidding? I can barely manage one, let alone two. So I imported the posts I had from the blog about Luke, and I figure you all will understand if I post a little more about him as I process what we are going through.

I have to share how proud I am of Grace. She is reading little books and doing an excellent job. She read this little book to me tonight and after she finished reading it she exclaimed, "Now I can start learning to read." I said, "Gracie you are reading!" She looked at me and asked, "I can read now? I CAN read now." Then she shouted down the hall to Luke that she knew how to read, to which he replied back, "well..you can't read as good as me." And from there, I am afraid, a shouting match between who could read and not read. Why can't they just get along sometimes? Ugh...the constant bickering is difficult on me sometimes.

Luke is still crying over the eye drops. Some nights he is a champ and some nights I almost have to wrestle him to get him to hold still long enough to insert the drops. I wish I knew some magic trick to make things better.

Bella will be 11 months old tomorrow, and I can't even comment on that :( Time is rushing by at lightening speed.