Back to School

Before Christmas we had decided that it was time to put Emma back into school. Emotionally she is doing so much better, still behind a bit but more secure.  Attachment is so much better. Her mumbling has stopped. The things that we wanted to accomplish have been accomplished. I think that it has been a very good thing for Emma to have spent that time home. She will be starting back next Tuesday when the new semester begins.

Today we had a meeting to determine placement.  Last year I had requested that she be retained because of her emotional age. They fought me on it telling me that she was reading so well and would be bored. Before we started this year I gave her one of those reading tests.  Yes, she reads very fast and tests high on them. However, she is speed reading, no inflection, no breaks, just a string of words read very fast. We have hundreds of books in our house of all grade levels.  If given the opportunity to chose on her own she goes for K-1st grade level books. After working with her this year she is currently at the upper 2nd grade level. If she was in the 3rd grade she would not be on grade level.

Math is my concern. She failed math last year. I started with 2nd grade math and assumed that we could work through it quickly and get to the 3rd grade.  However, we have not progressed quickly. Math is a huge challenge for her. I have asked that she get tested in math. We were getting to the point where math was becoming a fighting ground.  That is not what we wanted with homeschooling. She was cheating and doing everything in her power to get out of math. With our advances in attachment is did not want the home to turn into fighting grounds over school.

We talked and Emma was initially against going back to school. However, after talking about things going on at school she is ready to go back.  She was mad at me when I told her that she needed to go to 2nd grade.  We have talked about it quite a bit.  This is not a punishment, it is to help her to be successful. She should have an advantage since she has completed 2nd grade. She has come to accept that as well.

At our meeting today I was ready to fight the fight to have her retained.  However, the school counselor had a 2nd grade teacher there for the meeting.  We have been talking all year and she knew my intent and felt that they should follow my wishes. Strange, this time around her testing showed her to be immature and not working at grade level.  Seems to me like they could produce whatever paperwork they wanted to achieve whatever goal they had.  Regardless, I was happy with the outcome.  She will be going into a smaller classroom with some other kids who are struggling. They also have an aide in the classroom. The teacher and I talked about some of her struggles and have already got some things in place to offer her a successful year.

Emma is excited about her teacher and now wants to go shopping for school supplies.

In other news, I got the call that Kassi is heading to the hospital to have her baby. Grandson Noah will be here soon.  As soon as my husband gets home I will be off to pick up Sarah and head to the hospital.