Front of the Class

On Sunday, I watched one of the most incredible movies I've ever seen called, "Front of the Class". This is the story of Brad Cohen, a young man with Tourette's Syndrome who has fought his entire life to overcome this adversity. He battled prejudice, being bullied, teacher's telling him he'll never amount to anything, you name it. He managed to go to college, get his degree and become a 2nd grade teacher. I bring this up because it hits pretty close to home. Yesterday, we met with E's teacher, principal, school psychologist, and reading teacher. Over the last 5 weeks, E has been undergoing a myriad of tests with the sole purpose of trying to figure out how he ticks. In a nutshell, E doesn't learn quite like other kids. We found out that he has average to sometimes above average intelligence in just about everything. His one struggle is with reading comprehension and verbal communication. Last year, his school was obsessed with reading fluency. How fast could he read. They wanted WPM, or Words Per Minute. Thanks to this emphasis, E's reading fluency is actually above average. The problem, he doesn't really comprehend what he reads very well. All of his other subjects and skills are excellent. The other issue, is verbal communication. We likened it to the adults in those Charlie Brown specials. The Wah, wah, wah's. E doesn't follow multi-step directions very well. He needs to see, and check off stuff. He is a very visual learner. If he sees it, and watches a demonstration of something, he masters it. He's also very concrete. He can do math, but put it in a story problem, he is lost. We had this incredible planning meeting with these wonderful women at St. Mary's. They are all extremely committed to ensuring E is successful. Right now, thanks to their work and our work at home, E is holding straight A's. He just needs extra time, and a little more one on one attention. Every kid learns differently. Most of the time, the standard methods of teaching apply to 90% of all students. E is that 10% that needs to be instructed a little different. He is only in 2nd grade. We are all very confident that E will grow and develop to understand "how he learns" so that he can learn and do things at the highest of standards. His accomodations are actually quite minor, but we finally feel we understand how he ticks a little better, and we have the support we have been hoping for. We knew we needed to do something different, and thank goodness we took the leap of faith we did and made the move to this school. E will finally be at the "Front of the Class", and it is now a really good thing!