In theory, these programs sound wonderful. After school tutoring programs and summer school programs all bring in funding to the school and sound like they would bring in so much help for struggling students. In reality, many times, the teacher doesn't want to be there. The kids are not helped individually. It's nothing more than a show in many cases, a way to make sure kids are actually doing their homework, but not really giving struggling kids the individualized attention they need.
Jasmine was given an IEP early in her elementary years. Her parents were told her IQ was low. She was diagnosed with reading comprehension disorders in 1st grade! In 3rd grade, she was diagnosed as ADD. She was given speech therapy for awhile when she was young.
I sometimes wonder if there was anything else I could have done to help this poor girl that was labeled and pushed off. After the first grade, Jasmine was held back. She hadn't learned to read well. I took the summer while she was with us and taught her phonics. The school was only using the sight words to teach reading, and Jasmine was failing miserably. After six weeks of phonics instruction, with daily review of the sight words she needed to know, she had jumped up three reading levels! But, it was too late. She had already been held back.
In the third grade the teacher wanted to hold Jasmine back again. Luckily, because of the ADD diagnosis, Jasmine was allowed to pass with remedial help. By this time she had been in school nearly year round with summer school. She was already burning out. Every teacher admitted that Jasmine was one of the hardest workers they had seen, but she just wasn't "getting it". This was the time a tutor was found.
Jasmine improved with a tutor. Her daily work was doing better because the tutor went through it every night. For the next several years, Jasmine fell into a routine of tutoring four days per week after school for at least an hour. Summers consisted of an hour, four days per week, of work designed to prepare her for the next year... or for the standardized tests that were in the fall. Practice tests filled the tutoring sessions. Yes, we spent a lot of money paying a tutor to help Jasmine do better on standardized tests.
Each spring a case conference would be held. "Professionals" would come in and give their opinion on Jasmine's progress. I'll never forget the lady that told Jasmine's parents that she would never be able to function in a regular classroom and would never get good grades. Infuriated, her parents told the lady that Jasmine had been in a regular classroom all year, and that she was getting As, Bs, and Cs. The lady acted offended that the child would dare achieve more than her "opinion" said she should.
I think the school was wrong in nearly every category. Jasmine may have to work harder, but she is a smart young lady. It's simply that she's very activity oriented. She had hearing difficulties when she was younger that caused her speech to be muffled. Memorizing a bunch of words to learn to read is a horrible way to teach a child. It doesn't give them the tools to move beyond very basic reading. Throw in a rough living environment, and Jasmine was set up to fail. In all actuality, her IQ is fine. There were a lot of extenuating circumstances that made Jasmine's learning process more challenged than it should have been.
Yes, she is ADD. She gets distracted very easily. But, as has been proven, ADD and ADHD children are often highly intelligent and highly creative. There is nothing wrong with Jasmine. I honestly believe there is something wrong with the schools.
I began homeschooling my then third grader when Jasmine was in the fifth grade. I was not allowed to homeschool Jasmine, but I learned so much about how children learn and why Jasmine wasn't succeeding. It had very little to do with her IQ. It had more to do with how things were presented to Jasmine, and how she would fall apart in a classroom setting. It also had a lot to do with things that were happening in her home where she was living. She only saw us part time. I watched Jasmine spend another three years with the same routine: school, tutoring, summer tutoring, struggling through.
When Jasmine moved in with us last year I thought that, finally, I would be able to help her with her studies. I still couldn't homeschool her, but I was optimistic about being able to help her one on one. Instead, that year became her worst in years. We were embroiled in a legal battle. Jasmine was undergoing counseling. The school often wasn't overly sympathetic to her situation. Then, there was the school's issues. In History, they didn't have enough books to go around, so the kids weren't allowed to take the books home. In Math, Jasmine could have corrected her tests and quizzes for partial credit, but no one informed the parents or even Jasmine until the school year was in it's last quarter.
Then we got permission to homeschool Jasmine...
Since the beginning of the school year, I have watched Jasmine realize that she can learn and learn well. Her test scores are always in the 90s. Three times she has gotten a perfect score on a test. At home, she is more relaxed than she was in the public school setting. She doesn't feel pressured to get everything done in a 50 minute class period. She is given time to study for her tests. She works hard, just as she always did in school, and is succeeding for the very first time. She is learning that she isn't all the labels that she was given. She is learning how to study, perhaps for the first time. Watching this take place is like watching a flower bloom. It's beautiful to behold.
Oh, there have challenges. After a few successful tests, Jasmine got over-confident. She didn't study, and when her Bible test came, she sat there with a blank expression on her face. Since the program we are using requires that Jasmine repeat the entire unit if she scores below an 80% on the test, I knew that this would totally hit her confidence level hard. Yet, the importance of studying had to be enforced. I ended up grounding her for the weekend, giving her time to "fix" her mistake by studying. On Monday the test was re-issued. She scored a 100%. The lesson was learned, and not just the Bible exam.
The truth is that homeschooling a student that has been labeled with learning disabilities often fixes the problems. The one-on-one, the quiet atmosphere, it all works wonders compared to the pressure at school to perform, to compete, often in the midst of loud classrooms and bells ringing. Instead of a teacher standing at the front of the room telling the children what they should know, Jasmine now has to find the information for herself. She has to dig through the texts to answer questions. And, unlike in public school, there is no moving on if a concept isn't understood. Every single wrong answer for all but the unit tests have to be corrected. If there is something she doesn't understand, she doesn't move on to the next lesson until she "gets it". Whether that takes an hour or a month, she will learn what she needs to learn. And, as previously stated, she must pass each test with a minimum of 80%.
At first, the school day was VERY long. We would begin at 8 in the morning and work until 6 or 7 in the evening. However, as Jasmine has adjusted and learned how to sit and focus for longer periods of time, our day now runs from around 9 in the morning until 2 or 3 in the afternoon, with breaks throughout the day. I also have been able to schedule extra reading for Jasmine, something that she never had time for in public school. She may have read three books last year, and that includes books for school. She is already almost finished with her third book, six weeks into the school year.
I pray daily for Jasmine to do well. I pray for her to learn how incredibly amazing she is, that she is a treasure from God. I pray that she doesn't live her life feeling inferior and labeled, because she can do so much more than even she thought possible. God has amazing plans for this girl. I love watching them begin to unfold.
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