my son is 6. he is in grade 1.
he is funny, smart and has already made two best friends.
He loves his teacher and holds his hand up and answers questions easily in his classroom. He loves to help his teacher and at night he grabs books and reads WITH me.
He writes in his journal daily and tells me tales about how his friends and he play in the yard.
he runs into the yard each morning and with a grin the clean pants he left with become grass stained.
at the end of the day, he is still grinning as he rushes into my arms and talks so fast about all the exciting things he has done.
My son however, is repeating the first grade.
When Owen was born he didn't hear so well, by his 18th month on this planet he had surgery to put tubes in his ears, which worked.. but it was late. his speech delay was significant, his developmental delays were slight but obvious when he entered Kindergarten at the ripe age of 3.
You see, my son is a October baby, so he started school when he was 3.
in his Junior Kindergarten year he had a teacher who was retiring in the fall, she was mean to my son- but he couldnt tell me. he didnt have the language skills. I only found out when he started grunting more then speakig when he cried and when he wouldn't even attempt to speak. He would act out and that was NOT like Owen, at home he was quiet and funny. but not the type to act out.
that summer he had to undergo speech therapy classes once a week for a hour, they were intense and hard for Owen.
by the time he entered Senior Kindergarten, his speech started to improve with his new teacher Ms Martin. However Ms Martin became pregnant that year ad was unable to continue teaching before spring due to health issues. Owen's progress took a huge dive, not to mention that was the year of strep throat. he lost about 30 days due to illness and his surgery when he had his tonsils removed went wrong, he became very ill after surgery...
so where all his peers were reading Owen was still pretty much at a JK level.
He entered Grade 1 against my better judgement I begged the school to hold him back, they said
"No- we dont do that"
by the first term in grade 1. Owen finally started to write his own name, he finally started to identify numbers and letters and he started to know their sounds.
the rest of the class was reading small books and learning addition and subtraction.
Owen had to have someone write his words for journal entry's and when you tried to get him to do it he would cry, it was too hard.
by Mid term Owen was able to read simple sight words and add small sums.
the class was reading larger books, learning how to spell and learning pattern's in Math.
In June Owen had started putting his hand up in class and participating in group activities. Owen started reading small easy sight word books and writing small words and even spelling them. Owen's speech was almost perfect and he was learning how to subtract.
he was FINALLY at the level expected in the beginning of the year.
We fought with the Principal & school to hold him back, they tried to tell us about IEP's and special Education.
But fortunately we had the BEST teacher in the school, who put Owen's needs far a head of everything else. she fought hard and she fought beside us.
She said in one Meeting
" Owen is simply behind in almost every way" She was clear that she didnt feel this was a disability but rather a immaturity.
That repeating grade 1 would benefit him dramatically.
All summer we prepped him.
" Your friends will go into grade 2. You will stay in Grade 1"
he wasn't happy at first.
But by the second day, he realized this stuff wasn't so hard. he started going right into the work, raising his hand to answer questions and guiding the other children on how things are done. He write cleanly and with ease.
Owen is social ad outgoing, his speech is even better then his 8 year old brother's now. he is able to do math work with no help. and each night I go in to tuck him in he has at leas 4 books in bed with him and he is READING them.
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