Tomorrow morning, at 9am EST Dusten will Graduate Kindergarten! WOOOO!!! Although this will be his second rodeo with a kinder graduation (so glad the kids that aren't going through aren't left out) either way, this time its "Special!" I'm so excited and proud of my little guy. He's come a long way this year! Last time he did amazing, but because of his speech issues, and other issues his teacher/myself/and others of the facility thought it best to hold him back one more year. I tell you, it was an amazing transformation.
Dusten really didn't begin speaking until he was 3 years old, and even then he was hard to understand. Just after he turned 4 I had him evaluated by the "state" and he was put into Speech classes for 30 minutes at a time, 3 days a week. Come his first year of kinder he was still in speech, and we had IEP meetings about him constantly. He was doing well, just not as well as we would have liked. In turn the decision was made to hold him back a year. I felt horrible....he had made a few close friends, and telling him that his friends would be going on to the 1st grade without him made me sad. But he took it well. Come this year, meeting his new teacher, and classmates was great! Dusten had the most AWESOME teacher, we LOVE YOU TO DEATH Ms. CUMMINGS!!!! She's young, fun, and has been the best teacher any child could ever have asked for (not saying that Dusten's 1st teacher wasn't great, Dusten LOVED her to death) but Ms. Cummings (who's mother has been a teacher at this school for YEARS) was absolutely a dream. :) Throughout this year Dusten blossomed, he wasn't afraid to talk to his teacher when he needed something, wasn't afraid to talk to other kids in the class and talk to them (last year his speech was holding him back) My child has blossomed from an unwilling bloom to a vibrant ready for the sun, flower! I can't believe the progress he's made.
We still have some issues, that in time will be dealt with, he's still in speech, come next year I think his time from 3 times a week will be cut to 2 times a week. But we are working on his "writing issues". Dusten's first year in Kinder we attempted to get him a OT eval...for some reason he was tested for everything but. This time around (which will probably not happen this school year considering it ends on Wednesday) we are going to have him evaluated for OT, and hopefully in the first few months of the 1st grade year, evaluated for other things. He's doing great, just having writing issues, in our last IEP meeting his teacher brought in a project she had the kids do, write a single sentence about something they had done (or something to that matter). She showed me his paper, and all I noticed was a bunch of scribbled down hand writing on top of numerous eraser marks where he'd try to write out a sentence and just erased it over and over. This is what has prompted the OT Eval.
Not long after that IEP I had asked Dusten what was wrong...he tells me that "Sometimes its hard to think!" I asked him how hard it was to explain what he'd done the evening before or over the weekend? He really didn't have an answer, and I hope that the Parent/Teacher meetings will continue monthly with his teacher next year. Dusten is a great kid, but he's one of those that you have to keep track of, keep an eye on, or he'll fall behind and get lost. I'm glad that we go to a school that has teachers that notice this in their children.
Speaking of....Just today I received a call from the schools Guidance Counsler telling me it was urgent and to call her back asap. I figured it was about Dusten and some testing...turns out it was for Destini. They had a meeting (which involved her teacher, counsler, school psychologist among others.) I wish I had been notified because I would have liked to have sat in for this. Either way, her teacher brought up her Math issue. Ugh...this is something we have been dealing with for a while now. The child goes into a coma when you try to do Math homework or teach her anything about math. Anyways, even though she's brought up her Math grade from an F to a C this year (which I felt was AMAZING) her teacher felt she still has some issues (which I feel was great...because I KNOW she has issues). Either way, they want to do some testing on her to see what exactly is going on. I'm all for it! Destini will be going to the 5th grade next year, her father and myself are HORRIBLE when it comes to math. Tomorrow morning I'll go in and sign the paperwork for them to test her, I know it won't happen until the next school year, but it will happen. I'm not scared to have my child tested for anything, as long as I know in the long run that its going to help them in School.
So here's to the next 2 days of Kinder for Dusten and 4th grade for Destini! Sounds like no matter what happens, they are going to have an AMAZING 1st and 5th grade school years! So glad we have a school/teachers that notice issues, even though the poor counsler and psychologist are bogged down with paper work from other students....at least at some point everyone gets the help they made need. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment