We are on day 3 of snow days. We got hit with a major (major for our neck of the woods) snow and ice storm. We have close to an inch of ice covering EVERYTHING and we probably got close to 10 inches of snow. OK- maybe more like 8, but it seems like 10.
Will came home from school on Monday telling me that Mrs. Ketchum explained to him about coming in at recess to fix mistakes on his assignments. He seems ok with it. And we spoke to him all weekend about coming home after school and fixing any assessments or tests that come home, FIRST, before anything.
Now, here we are 3 days later, still no school. Nothing like follow-through to really drive a point home. Ya know?
With any luck he will get to go tomorrow. From the teacher's perspective I imagine they are hoping for one last snow day. What on earth do you do on a Friday when the kids haven't been there since Monday? You can't do the spelling test, you can't do any other assessment you had been planning on. I guess you try to make up the in class work they missed throughout the week. Seems like it would be easier just to start over on Monday.
NOT that I am hoping for another snow day. Just trying to see things through the teacher's eyes!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
The Conference
OK- so I must have dreamt that I wrote this post, because I swore that I did. Apparently not!
I have told the story probably 15 times since Friday, so maybe that is why I thought I wrote it. I don't know but here it is.
We conferenced with both of Will's teachers and the school counselor as planned. Bottom line is that I feel Chris and I have a good feel for what is going on with Will in the classroom. We understand better what their frustrations are and what they are seeing. It is pretty much what we have spoken about over the last couple of weeks, but they were able to give us more examples.
Will needs to slow down, he needs to pay better attention, he needs to care about his work and he needs to doublecheck his work.
They showed us several examples of incomplete work, wrong answers that are the results of careless mistakes, etc...
So, we were given his report card. All A's and B's. Well a couple B-'s, actually. With all A's and B's one might wonder what the problem is. His reading teacher said it best when she said he is trending down in his grades and that is not what they want to be seeing at this point in the year.
What are we going to do?
Well, we want to figure out if this is all really a result of laziness/lack of motivation etc... Or is there something else going on? He seems to have some trouble following both verbal cues and written cues. Is there a deeper problem there? We aren't sure.
So, we are going to begin by having Will correct all careless mistakes he makes on in class assignments as well as on tests. At school he will be kept in at recess to redo his work. At home he will be forced to do it when he gets home BEFORE he does anything else.
We hope that once he realizes he will have to correct his work no matter what that maybe he will realize he should just do it right in the first place!
We are going to give this tactic 3 weeks to see if it helps. If we see good improvements then we know we are on to something. If not a lot changes then we need to look into some other issues.
On a very positive note, Will received his Rock Test back today that he took on Friday. He and I studied together for it. He felt very ready for it.
He got an A! He only got a half credit on the last question, otherwise it would have been a 100! He was really very proud of himself. It was wonderful to see!
I have told the story probably 15 times since Friday, so maybe that is why I thought I wrote it. I don't know but here it is.
We conferenced with both of Will's teachers and the school counselor as planned. Bottom line is that I feel Chris and I have a good feel for what is going on with Will in the classroom. We understand better what their frustrations are and what they are seeing. It is pretty much what we have spoken about over the last couple of weeks, but they were able to give us more examples.
Will needs to slow down, he needs to pay better attention, he needs to care about his work and he needs to doublecheck his work.
They showed us several examples of incomplete work, wrong answers that are the results of careless mistakes, etc...
So, we were given his report card. All A's and B's. Well a couple B-'s, actually. With all A's and B's one might wonder what the problem is. His reading teacher said it best when she said he is trending down in his grades and that is not what they want to be seeing at this point in the year.
What are we going to do?
Well, we want to figure out if this is all really a result of laziness/lack of motivation etc... Or is there something else going on? He seems to have some trouble following both verbal cues and written cues. Is there a deeper problem there? We aren't sure.
So, we are going to begin by having Will correct all careless mistakes he makes on in class assignments as well as on tests. At school he will be kept in at recess to redo his work. At home he will be forced to do it when he gets home BEFORE he does anything else.
We hope that once he realizes he will have to correct his work no matter what that maybe he will realize he should just do it right in the first place!
We are going to give this tactic 3 weeks to see if it helps. If we see good improvements then we know we are on to something. If not a lot changes then we need to look into some other issues.
On a very positive note, Will received his Rock Test back today that he took on Friday. He and I studied together for it. He felt very ready for it.
He got an A! He only got a half credit on the last question, otherwise it would have been a 100! He was really very proud of himself. It was wonderful to see!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Report Cards come home tomorrow
I am oh so curious what Will's report card is going to behold. I am not expecting greatness. I asked him how he thinks his grades will be. He said, "Good".
Huh?
How can they possibly be good with all the poor grades he has been getting on papers and tests and assessments? How can he think his grades will be "good"?
He brought home two tests yesterday from last week. The one was his math unit test that I spoke to Mrs. K about. It was interesting to see where his mistakes were. And the fact that he knew them when she went over it with him just blows my mind. There was one in particular that surprised me. It was multiple choice and asked which of the following was a characteristic of a triangle. He chose wrong. The correct answer was that it has three angles. What he chose was said a triangle is three-dimonsional. What? How did he get that wrong? He had come home from school one day last week all excited to tell me that TRIANGLE means THREE ANGLES. How did he get that wrong?????
The other assessment he brought home yesterday was from reading. It had a passage to read and then questions about it. Multiple choice and fill in the blank. He got a 10/14. He said, "See I did good". No, dear. 10 out of 14 is 71% which in his school's grading system is a D. Ugh!!!!!
I tried to talk to him a little about that one. He says when he reads he is so interested in what is going to happen next that he doesn't remember what he is reading. I don't know if that really makes sense, but that is what he thinks happens.
So, I have no idea what to expect on his report card. We have our conference in the morning.
He also has an assessment on rocks and soil. He came home with a study guide and he and I went over most of it last night. I remember that when i was in school and had to study that I always learned the information better if I wrote it down. I can remember taking copious notes from my textbooks. Just reading for me rarely worked. It was hard for me to retain the info. So I had Will write down the various items that were on his study guide. He knows a lot of the info already. I think he enjoyed writing it down. We are going to do the rest of it tonight and then go over it.
It will be interesting to see how he does on the assessment. If he still does poorly then I don't know what to think. I am sure that by the end of tonight he will have a very good handle on the info.
Huh?
How can they possibly be good with all the poor grades he has been getting on papers and tests and assessments? How can he think his grades will be "good"?
He brought home two tests yesterday from last week. The one was his math unit test that I spoke to Mrs. K about. It was interesting to see where his mistakes were. And the fact that he knew them when she went over it with him just blows my mind. There was one in particular that surprised me. It was multiple choice and asked which of the following was a characteristic of a triangle. He chose wrong. The correct answer was that it has three angles. What he chose was said a triangle is three-dimonsional. What? How did he get that wrong? He had come home from school one day last week all excited to tell me that TRIANGLE means THREE ANGLES. How did he get that wrong?????
The other assessment he brought home yesterday was from reading. It had a passage to read and then questions about it. Multiple choice and fill in the blank. He got a 10/14. He said, "See I did good". No, dear. 10 out of 14 is 71% which in his school's grading system is a D. Ugh!!!!!
I tried to talk to him a little about that one. He says when he reads he is so interested in what is going to happen next that he doesn't remember what he is reading. I don't know if that really makes sense, but that is what he thinks happens.
So, I have no idea what to expect on his report card. We have our conference in the morning.
He also has an assessment on rocks and soil. He came home with a study guide and he and I went over most of it last night. I remember that when i was in school and had to study that I always learned the information better if I wrote it down. I can remember taking copious notes from my textbooks. Just reading for me rarely worked. It was hard for me to retain the info. So I had Will write down the various items that were on his study guide. He knows a lot of the info already. I think he enjoyed writing it down. We are going to do the rest of it tonight and then go over it.
It will be interesting to see how he does on the assessment. If he still does poorly then I don't know what to think. I am sure that by the end of tonight he will have a very good handle on the info.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Meeting delayed
I just received a call from the school counselor. It seems she had a meeting pushed back to our meeting time and she can't reschedule that one. So, we are pushed back to Friday morning. Same time, in her office instead of the classroom.
I was, of course, looking forward to getting some answers tomorrow, but guess I can wait two more days. Not much will change within those two days anyway. Plus we are supposed to get report cards on Friday so maybe they will be able to go over Will's with us then. Or maybe not, it is not really relevant to our meeting.
Chris and I had a brief discussion this afternoon, in preparation for tomorrow's meeting. We are pretty much on the same page with our thoughts and questions.
I'll update after our meeting, if not before.
I was, of course, looking forward to getting some answers tomorrow, but guess I can wait two more days. Not much will change within those two days anyway. Plus we are supposed to get report cards on Friday so maybe they will be able to go over Will's with us then. Or maybe not, it is not really relevant to our meeting.
Chris and I had a brief discussion this afternoon, in preparation for tomorrow's meeting. We are pretty much on the same page with our thoughts and questions.
I'll update after our meeting, if not before.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Lazy vs. Real Problem
On the one hand I can see how he might just be in a lazy stage. He does not want to do extra work, he does not want to do anything extra, he seems like he just wants to skate by.
On the other hand maybe he doesn't want to do anything extra because just doing the minimum takes so much effort.
How do I know?
I had dinner with Katie last night and she made an interesting point to me. In regards to his getting the wrong answers on his math unit test when in actuality he knew the correct answers. She said that if this was all just a matter of being lazy wouldn't he still at least get the answers right? If he knows the answers then he knows the answers. Laziness does not translate into putting wrong answers down.
Or does it?
Is he just not paying enough attention, or caring enough to make sure he has the right answer?
This is all so confusing to me. I don't want to make excuses for Will if this is all a matter of him just needing to put more effort into his work. If it is just a matter of him trying harder to pay attention to detail. I want him to take responsibility for that. If he needs to.
But, maybe there is a problem. Maybe he is not just being lazy. Maybe he truly has a disconnect somewhere in that cute little head of his and he has trouble processing from his brain to paper. Or whatever it may be. Maybe he really cannot help it.
I wish there was a tried and true test that I could give him. Or better yet, as simple question I could ask him that would reveal to me the answers. I hate the thought of putting him through hours and hours of tests. I know for him that will feel like torture!
How do you tell the difference?
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Conference set up for next Wednesday
Well, I had the good part of a post written out here about how I have heard nothing from anybody at the school, but then the phone rang and it was Mrs. K. Thank goodness! I was getting worried that I would not hear anything back going into this long weekend.
Anyway, she was calling about two things. One, we are going to have a conference next Wednesday the 21st with Mrs. R, Mrs. K and Mrs. N. I will look forward to that.
The second thing she was calling about was the unit test Will took in math yesterday. We were really hoping for a good grade. He got 19 out of 25 correct, which was a 76%. He really needed a B to pull his grade up. But, beyond the grade is the question of why? Lori told me that during indoor recess she asked Will if he would go over the test with her. She told him that he got a C and she had really thought he would do better than that. She told him that if they could go over it and he could show her that he knows the information she would be willing to give him a few extra points. He, hesitatingly, agreed. She was very, very pleased that he agreed to, though.
So, they went over it. She covered up some of his wrong answers. For example, a quadrilateral was drawn and he was to label the types of angles. He got the right angles wrong (?) on the test. She covered up his answers and asked him what the angles were and he named them all correctly. He also got a few of the other questions correct, while a couple it was obvious he wasn't to certain of the answer. So, she asked me if it was ok if she gave him a few extra points. She feels he knows the info, but it is getting lost somehow in the written work. I told her if she felt comfortable with that, then yes, I was fine with it.
She told me that for some reason he is wanting to get by with as little effort as possible. Today they needed to label some sides to figure out the perimeters and he asked if he had to write the numbers down. She told him that she thought it would really help and he asked again if he had to. She said yes. So he did. But he didn't want to!
So, we are going to meet Wednesday. I need to come up with a thorough list of questions for them. It won't be a long meeting. Off to do some research...
Anyway, she was calling about two things. One, we are going to have a conference next Wednesday the 21st with Mrs. R, Mrs. K and Mrs. N. I will look forward to that.
The second thing she was calling about was the unit test Will took in math yesterday. We were really hoping for a good grade. He got 19 out of 25 correct, which was a 76%. He really needed a B to pull his grade up. But, beyond the grade is the question of why? Lori told me that during indoor recess she asked Will if he would go over the test with her. She told him that he got a C and she had really thought he would do better than that. She told him that if they could go over it and he could show her that he knows the information she would be willing to give him a few extra points. He, hesitatingly, agreed. She was very, very pleased that he agreed to, though.
So, they went over it. She covered up some of his wrong answers. For example, a quadrilateral was drawn and he was to label the types of angles. He got the right angles wrong (?) on the test. She covered up his answers and asked him what the angles were and he named them all correctly. He also got a few of the other questions correct, while a couple it was obvious he wasn't to certain of the answer. So, she asked me if it was ok if she gave him a few extra points. She feels he knows the info, but it is getting lost somehow in the written work. I told her if she felt comfortable with that, then yes, I was fine with it.
She told me that for some reason he is wanting to get by with as little effort as possible. Today they needed to label some sides to figure out the perimeters and he asked if he had to write the numbers down. She told him that she thought it would really help and he asked again if he had to. She said yes. So he did. But he didn't want to!
So, we are going to meet Wednesday. I need to come up with a thorough list of questions for them. It won't be a long meeting. Off to do some research...
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
In the beginning...
Every journey has a beginning. Some beginnings are more obvious than others.
When you think of a trip you might take there is a definite beginning and a definite end. Usually both of those places are home.
I am afraid that this new journey of ours does not have a beginning that I can pinpoint. Unless that beginning is the birth of Will. But, I don't want to bore you by going back that far!
This is definitely the beginning of this new leg of our journey with Will. And this is definitely the beginning of me blogging about this journey. I want to be able to have a record of what we are embarking on. I know there is going to be lots happening, lots of questions, hopefully lots of answers and I need a place to write about it all. I do much better writing than I do talking. So, I hope this blog becomes a place I can come to record my frustrations, my questions, my celebrations and everything in between that occurs on this quest.
Journey... quest... it all sounds so mystical and fantastical.
Unfortunately it is all real life and it is MY real life. Actually, Will's real life.
Will is in 3rd grade and will be 9 years old in a little over 2 months. He has begun to struggle in school. It has been slowly going down hill over the last month. He struggles with careless mistakes in math, he struggles with paying attention in reading and science. I wholeheartedly believe he struggles majorly with reading comprehension, that remains to be seen though.
There are so many things to touch on, to catch up on where we are right now. I can't possibly conquer them all right now. So, I am going to begin with what I am hearing from his teachers.
Back in late November/ early December (08) we received Will's interim report for 2nd quarter. His grade in math had gone down to a C+ and reading had slid a bit, too. I spoke to both of his teachers and this is what I was told:
The comments from Mrs. K were these: "Will continues to understand math concepts, but recently struggled on a quiz because of simple addition mistakes and misreading the problems. (He had to go back into other problems to solve new problems) He should have plenty of time to get his grade up. Keep practicing reading carefully."
And from an email from Ms. R, She suggests we have a conversation with him about REALLY paying attention. Too many times, apparently, he will ask her questions that she has already answered. She says he has great potential if he can only find his motivation.
So, we have worked on these things, the best that we can from home. Will does extra math now in the evenings. Chris and I felt that if we could get him to improve his memorization of math facts he would not make so many careless mistakes.
But, then came last Friday. Will brought home an assessment from Science class.
He received a grade of N.
That was the lowest possible grade. Ms. R had attached a rubric so that we could see what was expected and what each grade would be given for. The assessment was on the week's reading about fossils and how they form. In short, Will was given a hypothetical situation where some fish were swimming in the ocean, they became diseased and died. He was to then describe in words and pictures how they might have become fossils.Will's answer was pretty much just a reiteration of the hypothetical scenario. The fish were swimming, they swam into disease and then died. He drew a picture that showed this. Nothing was written about how the fossils might have formed.
I emailed Ms. R on Friday and heard back from her on Monday. I was already scheduled to work in the library Monday, so she came and saw me while I was there. We spoke for a good 10 minutes and I got some information from Mrs. K, too. This is getting lengthy so I am going to bullet-point what I came away from these conversations with.
- Will has two opportunities this week to get his math grade up to a B. (The quarter ends Friday)
- Will does NOT pay attention in Ms. R's classroom. He is not disruptive at all, but he does not pay attention.
- Will asks the same questions that she has already answered, sometimes numerous times before.
- Will received one of the only 4 N's on the science assessment out of the two classrooms.
- ADD was mentioned, by Ms. R. Only as something to look into.
- They have no idea what is going on with Will anymore than I do...
He is losing confidence and I am afraid beginning to dislike school.
So, that brings us back to "the beginning". The beginning of a journey with so many unknowns. I have a lot more to share, but will wait for a later post.
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