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. 

How did it start? When did I notice my childs reading problem?

I will start from the beginning of my journey, as it is the best way to show you all the struggles that I have faced.  It can also, let those who are dealing with the same or similar issues, feel that they are not alone in the world. 

My oldest child, Amy, was born 4 weeks early.  She had a rough start in life.  She was severely jaundiced.  Her bilirubin levels reached 23.7.  The pediatrician told me that some children can have cognitive damage, when those levels reach 24 or higher.  Well, I was a very worried first time mom.  That level of 23.7 had me concerned. 

I am a mom, who is educated.  I work with children in the Early Intervention program (birth to 3).  So, I was on top of all my childs early milestones, which she reached, all pretty much on target. 

Then, in preschool, Amy started to have difficulty with recalling words to songs.  She had difficulty with distinguishing her left from right.  She was always a step behind in her dance class.  In preschool, the 2 years before kindergarten, she was spending 2 weeks on each letter of the alphabet.  She would come home with a project, and could not tell me the name of the letter she was working on.  A letter that she saw repeatedly for 2 weeks in many forms.  She had a hard time learning to write her name.  She wrote many letters backwards, (the letters that she knew).  She couldn’t remember the 4 lines to the poem that she had to remember in kindergarten. 

By the end of kindergarten, she still couldn’t tell me the names of all the letters.  She progressed extremely slowly with the reading program in school.  She was great at remembering stories that her teacher read out loud to the class.  She continued to write numbers and letters backwards.  It took us an hour to do one worksheet at home.  For first grade, she was placed in a classroom with extra reading support, with a reading specialist who came into the class. 

Upon entering first grade, Amy still did not know all the letters of the alphabet and was really struggling to read the most common of words that they were learning in school.  We continued to struggle with homework, spending more than an hour on a worksheet that her peers could complete in 10 minutes.  We also noticed that she said “huh?” often.  She continued to lag behind her peers in reading.  She progressed very slowly. Both meetings that I had with the child study team, led to them NOT evaluating her.  Despite my best efforts to explain to them, that I knew that this was more than immaturity, that this was a true reading problem.  She was not evaluated because she was NOT a full year behind learning expectations.  She was being serviced by an intervention and review committee.  We met as needed to discuss what to do to help her.  They knew that she needed to be evaluated, but, our hands were tied.  She did well enough in her other topics, especially math.  The only problem with math, was that the school uses a math program that relies heavily on word problems, thus her needing to be able to read.  We started private tutoring, halfway into the school year.  Our tutor, was fabulous and genuinely concerned.  She knew that there was a disability there, too. 

Near the end of first grade her teacher recommended that she be held back.  I absolutely refused, knowing that holding her back would not solve her reading problem.  I knew that she had a reading disability.  Holding a child back for that would not allow her to catch up.  I knew that we needed to get outside help, after the second meeting with the child study team led to them not evaluating her.  

Over the summer between first and second grade, I met with a neurodevelopmentalist.  My health and science education led me to believe that she definitley had a hard time processing sounds.  The neurodevolmentalist recommended Central Auditory Processing (CAP) testing.  We scheduled that for October of her second grade year.  Over the summer, she was tutored twice a week.  We were facing this head on.  She entered second grade reading at a beginning first grade level.