Author vs. Reader

How can it be the end of June already. School here just got out barely 3 weeks ago and Josh is in week 1.5 of summer school---well, ok, ESY ( or extended school year which is the fancy name that kids in special ed get to describe their "extra fun" version of summer school, which trust me is not all that extra fun, but I digress) and between my post school year debate coaching duties at the national speech and debate tournament (shout out to my AWESOME debaters), surprisingly interesting  professional development work and just trying to get into the swing of summer, I'm amazed that I'm already at the end of the first third of my time away from school. 

In the middle of that all, we keep plugging away at the reading thing and that makes Mr. Josh alternately resigned and annoyed with his mother. All to often I hear the "But wh-hyyyyyyyy???????"  issued from my charming child's lips. While I longed at 3 to hear anything from him that sounded remotely like a word, at almost 13 I'm not a fan of the whiny teenager. Take what you wish for, though, I guess. Ha! 

Letter writing practice rates a C-----

We are now at 7 letters for Josh in our quest to get letter/sound correspondence this summer. He has short /a/ and short /o/  and soft and hard /g/. I was surprised by the soft /g/ sound since I didn't have to teach that, he just knew it. That's 90% accuracy or better on 3 trials over 5 opportunities in both naming the letter and independently producing the sound. He can do the /k/ sound for /c/ at 60% accuracy but his naming of the letter is inconsistent across trials. The same is true for /d/. He continues to name them both "e". With /m/, he independently calls it /w/ and says the sound is the name. We have practiced the tactile piece of feeling your lips vibrate against each  other to produce the mmmmmm sound and I've tried various visualizations with him about the vibration but he has such a hard time letting go of the name he has learned. I just introduced /l/ and he can name it at 90% accuracy off the bat. The sound production though, not so much. Right now the name and sound are the same, but given the short time we have been working at it, I think we can change that pretty easily.

As with everything else, it's the transfer effect that Josh struggles with so very much. Part of OG is dictating words, and while he tries, he struggles. I model the word, we practice it together, he says the word and blends it on his own, but I'm never sure how much sticks. I think we have it and then a night like tonight happens where we  start out strong and then about half way through all the words are written backwards and from left to right. Dyslexia strikes again. I am not sure what he was doing, but he was rating each word with a number to describe how difficult it was. Apparently the higher the number, the worse it was..... as you can see, there was no love in Wordville tonight. 

The bigger the number, the harder it was.....

Yet, through all that, I did get him to read one Bella and Rosie book to me. Of course, he chose to read the level A book so it was super easy, but he could do it on his own. Hey, reading is reading, right? 

Who doesn't love them some Bella and Rosie, right? 

But then, at the end, he brings me this project he's been working on and wanted me to take dictation. This is the part where my mama heart swells with pride and alternately breaks into a thousand pieces all over again. He is writing a story and even though I have a long list of issues with his teachers from last year and their less than inspired approach to his reading needs in school, one thing they did encourage him to do was to write and they happily scribed for him when they could understand what he was saying. So, he has this wonderful story from inside his head that he is telling the world and he owns it. He is so, so proud of this adventure that his hero (the name is a surprise to be revealed soon) will be taking on a planet that seems an awful lot like some kind of post apocalyptic world where people need to build things (cue the hours we have spent playing Fallout on the iPad) but as author and illustrator he is finding his voice, and using his voice and that means he is powerful and he has a story to tell. He may be misusing some connecting words in his sentences, but my little man is showing me that he has a rich vocabulary when he independently uses words like dimension, machinery and ancient artifacts correctly and in context. 

The title of this masterpiece...Ancient Keepers and Dragons

Page 2..Check out that Castle!

Page 3...The Cliffhanger.....

I watch him sit in the chair, drawing another picture to go along with the next part of this wonderful tale and I find myself returning to the question that has rattled around in my mind for years, and will continue to keep me awake for the foreseeable future: how is it that there is no one who can tell me how I can unlock the obvious creativity, thoughtfulness, higher order and abstract thinking skills that I know are begging to blossom in my child. Why is it that in one of the best schools in the state I live in, the best that they can offer my son is a multi-categorical special education classroom where he will be left behind and his potential will be wasted because he doesn't fit neatly inside their little box of what is or is not within their power to appropriately educate? Why do I feel so very helpless to help him, and I am an educated parent who works within the very system that is failing my child? Pretty words and platitudes don't mean a whole lot. I have given up on the system since their only desire is to do the bare minimum for him until he's 21. The only people who really, truly care long term are his father and myself, since we are the ones responsible for him. Right now, I am feeling as though I need that superhero from his book to come and rescue me because I know I need some answers on how to fix this broken system. Maybe someday I'll be lucky enough to have Josh guide me there.