Second Grade- The wool is lifting from our eyes

Amy entered second grade, and right off the bat, I knew that this was going to be a special year.  She finally had a teacher, Mrs. Apple,  who, despite having only 5 or so years of teaching experience, had MOM experience.  She had a high school child who had some learning struggles of her own.  She was able to see that Amy wasn’t reading, due to a learning problem, and not a maturity problem.  Mrs. Apple worked hard with my daughter to help her learn how to read.  She was truly concerned.  She was easy to talk to, and we worked together to provide the support that Amy needed to become a reader.  Neither her kindergarten nor her first grade teachers went above and beyond their normal classroom duties.  I am forever grateful to Mrs. Apple for her dedication. 

Once again, I faced the child study team, along with Mrs. Apple and the reading specialist, who was with Amy for the second year in a row.  We pushed, and tried so hard for them to see that this was more than just a child lagging behind.  That there were real problems in the way that she was learning.  That there were discrepencies between her written classwork, and her oral class work.  That she was creative, and had well planned stories, that fell apart as she tried to write them out.  Nope…didn’t work.  She was only 8 months behind learning expectations.  We cannot test her.

October came, and we went for the CAP Testing.  CAP testing includes a full audiological test, as well as testing to see how the child processes sounds that she hears.  The audiological testing revealed that Amy had a high frequency sensory neural hearing loss in her left ear.  Layman’s terms- she cannot hear high pitched sounds on the left.  Now, this was interesting.  She had started speech therapy in first grade, as she had a hard time pronouncing “th” sounds.  Guess what?  She wasn’t hearing them all the time!  “th” is a high frequency sound.  Next she went in for the CAP testing.  The testing wasn’t able to be completed, as there were problems with the CD that they were using, but, early results indicated that Amy did have a CAP disorder.  Auditory Field Ground Deficit.  It too, was only in the left ear, but, was enough of a problem, that she couldn’t pick out one thing to listen to, in a noisy envirionment.  The audiologist was going to complete testing and make her recommendations. 

Once all the reports were received, I went directly to the school guidance counselor, who was head of the intervention team.  We set up a meeting, and developed a very comprehensive 504 B plan for Amy.  A 504 B is a plan that must be followed by the teacher, like an IEP, but, for children who had a diagnosed disability that would interfere with their education, but, who are not recieving special educational services.  We ordered an FM system for her classroom.  The teacher has a microphone, and her voice is amplified, so that Amy can hear her, and not all the other background noise. 

Amy did continue to struggle in school, despite all the interventions that we were utilizing.  I felt like I was swimming in an ocean.  I didn’t know where to go, I didn’t know how to get her the help that she needed.  I started to research dyslexia.  As I read stories of children and their journeys and struggles in school, I cried.  I could say those same things about my daughter.  She was bright, but, couldn’t learn how to read.  She was great in math.  She still didn’t know all the letter names and sounds in first grade, despite being in preschool since she was 18 months old, and despite us reading with her every night.  The child study team refused to evaluate…on and on, I saw my daughters struggles, in other children.  Many parents finally had to go out of the school system for testing.  But, where to go?  I had no clue.  The school wasn’t “able” to tell me.  They could not tell a parent that they needed to go outside of the school system and get an evaluation, and even worse, recommend where to go. 

Amy got lucky, for the last several months, Mrs. Apple had a student teacher.  As the student teacher began to take over the class, Mrs. Apple was able to sit with Amy, and work with her one on one.  Amy’s spelling tests improved, as did her written expression.  At the end of the school year, we once again went to the child study team, and once again, Amy was denied the testing that I knew that she really needed. 

That summer, we enrolled Amy in a summer reading program that is held at a local college.  She recieved one on one reading instruction with a graduate student working on their reading certificate.  It was 4 days a week for 4 weeks.  This was perfect as Amy’s tutor was unavailable that summer to tutor. 

Amy didn’t gain much, but, she didn’t lose her reading skills over the summer.  But, I still didn’t know where to go.  I didn’t know how to get her tested.  I didn’t know if our insurance would cover it.  But, I knew that without a reasonable doubt that she had dyslexia.  And, that I was the one who was going to have to take it into my own hands to have her tested.  But, I had to find out where to go.