Hi, I am Wendy and I am a 43 year old single Mom of 3 great kids.
My son is Korey, Age 21, and my daughter, Whitney age 18. both of
whom have graduated high school. Korey has started College and decided to take a break since he really didn't like the area that he chose. He is trying to figure out what he wants to do while he works. Whitney is going to college at a nice private college in the area. My youngest is Andrea. She is is
11 years old and she is struggling with school and learning.
This
blog is dedicated to the educational journey that I will be taking
with Andrea.
She has been struggling with school for as long as she has
been part of the educational institution that we call School!
She should not have passed any grade as of yet. I was told that she
was behind every year! Then, Every year, I requested that she be
held back only to be given one stupid excuse after another.
Once, I was told that She would have emotional problems if she was
held back because she is bigger then the other kids and if they
held her back, she will be picked on for being so much bigger then
the other kids... OK.. Fine.. (I cant help it that both of her
grandfathers are over 6-feet tall! ) She is bigger then kids her
age.. So what! They were worried about her emotional health so they
pushed her ahead and gave her “extra help” in the form of AIS..
Well the AIS didn’t work! Most of the time I was just told that she
is behind but she would probably catch up once she got to the next
grade! HUH? Really? Is that possible??? I think not! Some kids are
just slow learners they said!
The best one though was in 4th grade when I was told
that it was too late to have her held back. Too late because up
until the 4th grade they are learning to read.. But from
then on, they are reading to learn.. So... My child cant read very
well and cant understand what she does read so what does that mean..
She cant keep up because she is struggling to read and wont be able
to read!!! Seriously, these are things I was told.
My Question is this.. What happens when she gets into
higher grades and she cant read? What then??? She will be picked on
even more!
I have made request to have her tested which did happen once only
for them to find that there is "nothing wrong" with her.
Here is the History on that.. My family has the learning disability
called Dyslexia. It is all through my mothers side. All the girls
in the family have it. Some worse then others. I was diagnosed in 4th
grade. I see her doing things I did when I was in school. She
struggles with reading comprehension and is distracted easily when
too many kids are around her when she is trying to study. She learns
by repetition. I even had one teacher who wanted to take away the
way I was teaching her with spelling.
She was doing activities in a workbook that did repetitive activities with the
words combined with daily spelling tests, which I did with her, both written
and verbal as well as simply writing the word over and over. Then
they wanted to take the workbooks away from her and were going to give
her partial credit for spelling words that were wrong as long as she
had any letter in the right place in the word. For instance. If she
had the word would and she spelled it “wuld”, she would have
gotten 3 of 5 points for that word. So if she had 100 letters in the list of spelling words that she was required to learn, and getting some letters in the correct place she would have gotten high grades for something that was incorrect. How is that right?
Giving her a passing grade rather
then failing her for having an incorrect spelling for that word. I
quickly put a stop to that! I ended up calling a meeting with the
teachers, administrators and psychologists and anyone else that would
have a say in my daughters education and who thought they would have
something to say as to why this was a good method of teaching this to
my child and that thought this was a good idea.
Spelling is black and
white. Its right or its wrong! They didn’t argue with me and put
her back on the workbooks and told me that I had to work harder with
her. I was already giving her 4 tests daily for spelling and doing
the work book with her. Making her write the words daily, use them in
sentences and making flash cards for her words and working with them
on top of the homework that the teacher assigned each day. I made her
work on all twenty words where they only held her accountable for
half of the words. I needed to work harder?? What needed to happen
is the school had to do their work and work with her and make her
responsible for all the words and not let her slide by.
NO
Accountability and NO Responsibility was the Rules and NO Child Left
Behind is the name of the Game.
I am fed up with her being pushed forward despite the fact
that she is not making the grade! (No pun intended!)
Well, Here we are about to start 6th grade, I get her report card
form school and for the first time, her State Assessment test score
are on her report card, She got a 52 in Math, Writing and Reading.
With a final grade in each were 70. 69 and 67 respectively. On
the Local tests, She got a 52 on each one. In a class like Social
Studies where reading Comprehension is so important, She got a 64. If
I take off the 90 she got in PE, She would have failed this year.
Yet she passed and is supposed to be a 6th grader.
To add insult to injury, I get a letter saying that she can not
return to school with out a specific inoculation which I don’t want
her to have because of the toxicity of the ingredients but that is
another long story for another time.
So, I have come to the following conclusion: I will begin Home
Schooling my Daughter!
The decision was made on or about July 14th. I
immediately got online and started doing all sorts of research about
rules regulations and curriculum and there is a ton of information
out there.
The first thing I find out is that I am passed the Deadline of
when the Letter of Intent was to be in. Oops! I have that out now.. I
keep researching and searching everything and reading anything that I
can find to read. I have found many philosophies, many ideas of what
is right and what is required. Its pretty overwhelming.
Then I was
told about the Robinson Curriculum. I have read the full website and
I like what this family has done. So, I ordered that today! I will be
supplementing her educational needs with additional reading,
vocabulary, writing, grammar and introduce her to phonics so that she
can start reading better.
When I was looking at reading and writing and math books. I didn't
know where to start her out. I finally found a Math Assessment test
that told me what level of math book I needed for her in the Saxon
Math book series. She placed in her own 6th grade level.
However, I do think she will need some extra tutoring to get her up
to speed. The mistakes she made were simple placements and math fact
issues. After doing a lot of repetitive work, we will get a handle
on that. This is great news!
It took me another 2 weeks to find a reading assessment test.
However it doesn’t measure her level of reading only the level at
which she can say words in a list using sight and deciphering
techniques. This tests puts her at a 4.9. Meaning 4th
grade and 9 months. Not good for a 6th grader.
I am now working on the curriculum for her. I have books ordered
and I have the Robinson
Curriculum (RC) materials ordered. I'm in the process of getting an
area set up in my house for the desk and a computer when she can do
work. I work full time. My plan for homeschooling is to have my brother, working with her with the RC stuff in the day time and then after I am home for work, We will do some extra spelling, grammar or writing as well as any math she has problems with.
My brother has been homeschooling his stepson since last year when they had problems with the school. His stepson was failing a summer class with an extremely low grade but the school passed him anyways and was gong to put him into the next level. So he decided to home school his stepson and plans on starting his kids age 3 and 5 this year. He did start some simple things with the little ones last year but it will be more formal with them this year.
So I have to work on a plan. I need to get a couple of things
still. I have started the planning process. I am working on a
breakdown of the curriculum.
I have many fears, questions and doubts as to whether I can do
this or not. I Wonder if my child’s eduction is going to be
adequate enough for her to go on to college and have a great career.
Will I be able to do all the required course work with her? Will I
do all the required work and not skip over something because I didn’t
know about it? Can I do this with out getting overwhelmed and
frustrated?
I feel that with my daughter going to public school, she will
never learn enough to be successful in life. She is not thriving in
the current situation and I feel that Home Schooling is necessary despite all my questions and doubts.
So This is our Journey!
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