******Warning******Really Long Post!!!!
Duncan and Brett were at soccer practice this evening, and the girls were eating their dinner. I was looking in Samantha's backpack for homework and the little stinker hasn't turned in homework from Monday!! She did this last year, and she's continuing the habit. I'm going to have to come down hard an this little Monkey...
Now for the explanation for the title of this post, I grabbed Tori's backpack to clean hers out. Yesterday she opened it and papers busted out, so I was going to empty it of all the unnecessary stuff. Her backpack was actually pretty clean. I had told her it was too full last night, but didn't expect her to actually clean it out! So I was going to zip it back up, but decided to see what homework she had as well. She only had a word search from Braille class, but she had an assignment that she got 42% on.
I called her over and said, "What is with the 42%?" She was very upset, and himmmmed and haaahhed for a while. It was about syllables and I looked at it and I could tell she was really confused about the assignment. The example was Titanic=Ti-tan-ic. One of the words she got wrong was huge, she put h-u-ge. So we covered the subject, and made sure that she understood what the assignment was supposed to teach her. She was able to tell me all the right answers.
So, we talked about not getting so frustrated, and to take deep breaths when she's feeling overwhelmed. I also told her that if she is confused about an assignment she needs to ask her teacher to explain it one more time, because she isn't understanding it. She said, "Well the teacher said we could use a dictionary to help with the assignment, but I couldn't find the words." My motherly instinct kicked in at this point. I asked her how big the dictionary was. She held up her hands and showed about the size of a regular paper back, which my guess is about 4"X6".
I asked her if she had let the teacher know she was having trouble reading the dictionary. She said no, but she was having trouble reading the dictionary and the Magic Tree House books. If you don't know the Magic Tree House books are what they start reading with in 1st and 2nd grade. At this point I felt a little sick, because nobody wants there babies to struggle.
I told her that she needs to be brave and tell her teacher her problems with her vision. To which she replied, "We're not supposed to get up or talk during testing or quizzes." I let her know that this wasn't an option. If she was having trouble seeing, she needed to let the teacher know. She seems intimedated by this teacher. I've heard she can be really strict, and yells quite a bit. I advised her that I want her to learn to take care of her issues so tomorrow I want her to tell her teacher about these problems. I also told her to tell her Braille teacher these things, since she will probably have more access to larger print books. I let her know that if her teacher gives her a hard time, she will have a very angry Momma to deal with who knows what the teacher can and can't do to help her. If neccessary I will go into her teacher and make a big stink. I'm sure Marcia, the girls Braille teacher will get real ornery too!
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those Mom's who think there kids are perfect. I let Tori know that if she is misbehaving, not doing her work, or any other number of things she would be in trouble! However, if this problems are caused by not being able to see the words on a page. That is were I am going to get huffy. All kids should have the same opportunity to learn, we just need to figure out how to make that work for Tori.
When I told Tori this she giggled. Not only did she giggle then, but she giggled and chattered non-stop through her bath. And she wouldn't stop talking when I was helping her with her word search. I think this is something that has been bothering my poor girl for a while. I hope the next few days will prove to have had the weight lifted from my babies shoulders.
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