Where to begin? So Legoman and Noodle were in the third and first grades, respectively, this year. It was a big year for both of them since Legoman had his first run at the state standardized tests, and Noodle ended up needing some educational testing that revealed some interesting things about him.
On the first point, let me say that I have no idea how Legoman fared on the tests, but I plan to ask for an appointment early in the new school year to find out. It's all very secretive, and you cannot have copies of your child's test scores, but you can peer at them under the watchful eye of a member of the school's front office staff.
Legoman is very good at math but only likes those elements of the language arts that deal with nonfiction, and I'm curious to see whether he ramped up his efforts for the test. He was not at all stressed about it---in fact, the "practicing" went on for so many months that he desired months too early to be allowed to take the damn test just to get it over with---so I am not up in arms in general about his having to take a standardized test, although I don't think what they show is as hugely worthy as the state would like one to believe.
As for Noodle, his first-grade year was everything his kindergarten year was not. This is a happy-go-lucky boy who gets along with everyone and loves to learn. Except that first grade turned him into the exact opposite. He was frustrated and angry much of the time when he came home, and he cried in the mornings, begging not to have to go to school. What on earth had happened to elicit such a 180-degree change from our younger son? we asked ourselves. Parent-teacher conferences brought explanations from the teacher of how he lashed out at classmates, tattled on them for the slightest things, and even spoke disrespectfully to her. None of this computed. We saw none of that type of behavior at home, barring occasional spats with his older sibling. Noodle had by then participated in multiple extracurricular activities and had been in a school-like childcare center since he was three months old, also without any such behaviors.
He was put on a behavior modification program by the school psychologist in which he had a chart with 12 segments of the day down the left-hand side, each with a smiley and frowny face next to it. His teacher circled a face for each task every day, depending on how she perceived his behavior had been, and gave him the paper to take home at night so he and we could see how he'd fared. He was devastated by every frowny face, even though many days he got none and the worst days he got 3 or 4.
Back to the school we went, and we rescinded our permission for the behavior modification program.
By this point we'd started hearing from other parents with students in the same classroom that their kids were stressed and unhappy. Putting multiple pieces together over time, we felt the classroom management style of the teacher was not ever going to jibe with our son's behaviors and needs, and we approached the principal about the possibility of moving him to another classroom for the third trimester of the school year. Absolutely not was the answer, both that time and a month or so later when we asked again.
By this time it was spring, and we were at our wits' end. Any given day could bring an email from the teacher about another outburst from Noodle or how he refused to do his in-class work. We felt this had to end. There had to be some reason he was acting so differently at school than anywhere else, and we elected to have him do educational testing with a child psychologist we paid for out of pocket (more on why we made that decision, rather than having the school do the testing for free will come later). Noodle was identified as being what today's educators call "twice exceptional," that is, gifted but also learning disabled. In the area in which he is gifted, his score could not have been higher, and in all the other measures but one he scored as advanced. But in one measure, that of processing/retrieval, his score was much, much lower than the other measures. The psychologist had rarely seen such a large point spread, in fact. She told us that part of the result of his processing delay is that Noodle is dysgraphic, meaning handwriting is a problem for him because he can't remember how to make the letters and he has motor issues that confound his writing even further.
Well, we had our answers for why first-grade was such a struggle. Now we had to figure out how to change defeat into success. (To be continued....)
By this time it was spring, and we were at our wits' end. Any given day could bring an email from the teacher about another outburst from Noodle or how he refused to do his in-class work. We felt this had to end. There had to be some reason he was acting so differently at school than anywhere else, and we elected to have him do educational testing with a child psychologist we paid for out of pocket (more on why we made that decision, rather than having the school do the testing for free will come later). Noodle was identified as being what today's educators call "twice exceptional," that is, gifted but also learning disabled. In the area in which he is gifted, his score could not have been higher, and in all the other measures but one he scored as advanced. But in one measure, that of processing/retrieval, his score was much, much lower than the other measures. The psychologist had rarely seen such a large point spread, in fact. She told us that part of the result of his processing delay is that Noodle is dysgraphic, meaning handwriting is a problem for him because he can't remember how to make the letters and he has motor issues that confound his writing even further.
Well, we had our answers for why first-grade was such a struggle. Now we had to figure out how to change defeat into success. (To be continued....)
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