Callie's Struggles

Ever since Callie was a little girl, I knew there was going to be a struggle with her in school.  I can still remember when she was 3 or 4 I would be trying to teach her, her colors and she would not remember.  It took her over a year to finally get them down to where she could sort of get them.  But, I just thought she was just being stubborn, so whatever!  Every time she would color, she would take 2 seconds to scribble a picture and move onto the next page.  If you gave her stickers, she will stack them all on top of each other and that was her picture. ( she still does that some times).  I was anxious to put her into preschool to see how she would do.  It took her the entire school year to learn how to write her name.  Half way through the year, they wanted her to begin a reading program.  We only made it 17 lessons in and it got way too frustrating for both of us we had to quite.  I just figured she wasn't ready and we would start it again later.  Her teacher said she really struggled in class, but you know what?  She was really young and it was only preschool so I didn't worry too much about it again.

Kindergarten came along, and the first half of the year went really well, but it was all basics.  She still had a hard time writing her name and still couldn't write most of her letters and defiantly could not read.  By January, things were starting to get really hard for her and doing homework was NEXT to IMPOSSIBLE.  It was soooo hard for me not to envy other parents and the experiences they were having with their kids, and watching them excel in school.  She was barely on a level B reading level where she should have been a lot further along than that.  I was soooo ready for kindergarten to end to have a break for the summer.  That is so horrible to say as a parent, but unless you have had a child that has struggled in school than it's hard to understand what I am talking about.

1st grade came and we were very anxious to get going on a new adventure but very cautious as to how to approach 1st grade.  I have a good friend who also teaches 1st grade at the school and when Callie was assigned her teacher, my friend called me to let me know who Callie had and she reassured me that she though that Callie's teacher Miss. Ovard would be the BEST teacher for her situation.  I was advised by my friend not to give Callie's teacher any pre conceived notions about her.  So i waited a few weeks and then scheduled a meeting with her teacher to discuss with her how she was doing.  That is when I realized Miss. Ovard WAS the best teacher for Callie.  She saw exactly what I was seeing and had a game plan she wanted to try.  She wanted to start giving her one on ones and see if that would help.  There was not much improvement so that is when we decided to try and do interventions, which was she spent 30 minutes a day with the teacher focusing on her reading, writing, math, or whatever she needed help with for the day.  So at this point in school, which was in October, she was on the lowest reading level, couldn't read her writing, she still didn't color, it was still a big scribble, and she had a hard time understanding numbers. The interventions went well, but we were told that if she didn't show enough improvement they would refer her to the resource program at school.  Well that's what ended up happening.  By December, she was referred and was going to be tested after the first of the year. 

Well she was tested and she DIDN'T make it into the program.  WHAT?  This did not make sense to me AT ALL.  How is it they are going to let her continue to fall farther and farther behind in school before they will do anything about it.  I was BEYOND frustrated about the situation.  In the mean time I had taken her in to the pediatrician to talk to him about her issues.  The Dr. diagnosed her as ADHD, wanted to put her on some medication and sent us on our way.  There was no way in heck we were going to put her on medication. 

I spent a lot of time doing a lot of research about natural ways to help her.  There were activities we could try to help stimulate her brain, as well as altering her diet.  I came across some homeopathic remedies of something called bright spark that I was willing to try.  When she started taking it, I saw a huge difference!  It was amazing!  The progress she made from August to January is the same amount of progress she made from January to April.  I think it had a lot to do with some changes we made with her learning process at home and the homeopathic she is on.

I went to Callie's parent teacher conferences and that is when we were told that she qualified for a program called Reading Recovery.   They took the bottom 12 students in the 1st grade and put them in this program where every day she goes and works one on one with a teacher on her reading and her writing.

Here we are at the end of April and Callie has gone from a level B reading level to a level E, her writing is legible (most of the time).  She is getting 10/10 and 9/10 on her spelling tests.  She is able make sense of a coloring page.  She is able to sound out a lot of words now.  WOW!!! 

In just a few short months she has come such a LONG way.  She is still not where she is supposed to be for 1st grade, but you know what WE WILL TAKE IT!  I am sooooo PROUD of her. She works really hard.  She comes home every night and has 6 new books to read every day, plus her story she has to create for her reading recovery, plus her take home reading book, plus her homework page for the day.  She spends on most nights an hour on homework.  She is a trooper!!!  I would say that Clint and I split the homework duty 50%. Which with someone like Callie, you have to.  It takes a lot of time, and  a lot of patience. 

I cannot even begin to express how excited I get when I see where she has been to where she is now.  I don't think I could pinpoint one contribution as to why she all of a sudden just took off, but I think it's a combination of  a lot of changes that we have made for her.  I am SOOOOOO thankful for the Reading Recovory program they have at the school.  I found out that not all schools do this program, so I am very grateful for the Principal for implementing this program at the school.

We still have a long road a head of us with getting her caught up, but I know we can get there.  My goal is to have her where she needs to be by the end of summer.  She will be able to attend special programs at the school during the summer, which will help tremendously.