Here we go again?

Lordy, I sure hope not! But... Will brought home two common reading assessments on Friday. One that was taken, I am not sure when, and the other was taken in November.

On his first one he received a 13 out of 14. Fabulous! Wonderful!

On the second he received an 8 out of 14. Not so great.

According to the letter that accompanied this assessment an 8 is a RED and means intervention needed. A YELLOW would have indicated he needs to be watched and a GREEN, which is what his first one was, indicates he is right on target.

In addition to the common reading assessments he brought home what looks like another reading comprehension test of some sort. On this one he received a 9 out of 14, a 64%, an F. Hmpf.

So, of course, I emailed Mrs. C and finally heard back from her last night. She said she was surprised by his score. She said that based on his first score we can see that he is capable of the work, he just needs to slow down. Which I think is probably true. Looking over that assessment I can see that he clearly did not go back into his reading to look for the answers. He guessed and he guessed incorrectly.

So, she said she wants to look over the most recent in class comprehension test. I don't know if this is the same one he got the F on or if there is a different one that he just took. She is going to review that and then give me her thoughts on it all.

Man is this just like last year or what? He does wonderfully 1st quarter and then begins to slide. Is he lazy? Is the work too hard? Does he have a problem? All questions I was asking myself at this exact time last year!!!

Stay tuned.

The dreaded question...

See this post on my other blog!

4th Grade 1st Quarter Report Card

Language Arts- B
Reading- A-
Spelling- A
Handwriting- S
Math- B
Science- A
Social Studies- B+
Phys Ed- S
Art- S
Music- S
Health- S
Conduct- S
Effort- S

Wow, wow, wow! What a fantastic report card! We are all thrilled with it, including Will! He is proud and he is really showing pride in his work so far this year. It is so nice to see this.

I think having a male teacher has been wonderful for him. I don't know if it is that fact alone or the fact that he just really likes Mr. P, but he wants to do good work for him. I can see that. And, Mrs. C is great and he seems to really enjoy her as well.

I did email both of his teachers when I got a note saying they do NOT request a conference at this time. I just wanted them to know that in 3rd grade we had similar grades and then things went downhill. I just asked them to keep this in mind and help me continue to remind Will to take his time, check his work and focus! They both responded with nice emails saying absolutely and that, of course, we could conference at any time any of us felt it was necessary!

Go Will!!!

Stop The Presses

Will asked to study. Not only did Will ask to study, Will asked his teacher, Mr. P, if he could bring home all of his math worksheets to better prepare for Tuesday's test. I asked Will a couple of different times, in a couple of sneaky ways, "Did Mr. P tell all the kids to take these papers home to help with studying?" And each and every time he assured me that he asked Mr. P if HE could bring them home.

Again, whose child IS this?

Now, I do not know how he did on this test. He says he did well, but we have not received it back, yet. I anticipate we will get it tomorrow.

I have not posted yet about Will's interim report. I suppose that is a good thing, in that in the past I have always posted here about Will's troubles and his poor grades.

I found the interim report quite amusing. You see, this is Mrs. C and Mr. P's first year teaching together. And, the impression I get is that they did not know they were going to be teaching together until a week or two (at the most) before the start of school. They clearly have different teaching styles and I can't honestly say that I like one over the other. I see definite pluses to each of them.

Anyway, the interim report was prefaced by a note that said this first report would be a narrative rather than actual grades, because it is still so early in the year and the kids are really just learning about what is expected of them. This note was signed by both teachers, but clearly written by Mrs. Craig.

So she had a nice narrative written about Will:
"Will does a nice job in Language ARts. He grasps the mechanics of writing, using correct punctuation and capitalization. His work doesn't provide great detail, but he gets his point across. He sometimes doesn't follow all directions. Will's reading fluency is right at grade level. In science, he understands our safety rules and tools."

Mr. Price said this:
"Math- 99% A
Social Studies- 90% B
He is off to a good start in the afternoon! Keep working hard!"

Not exactly a narrative! It doesn't bother me, but I do find it funny that his didn't even approach a narrative!

So, I am thrilled that Will is suddenly caring about his work, doing well, WANTING to do well, and enjoying himself, too. Hallelujah! Now we just need to keep it up! This is only 1st quarter!

I See Changes

Yes I do! Man, the last couple of days Will has brought home work from school that he has already completed and it looks like another child's. I kid you not. It is so neat and so thorough.

Last night he brought me his homework to be checked. He had completed all three pages at school, but wanted me to see it. Whoa! I asked him if it was his! He grinned from ear to ear and told me it was. I asked him what has changed and he said he doesn't know. I hope he keeps this up.

Now, on the other hand. He has still brought home work on Fridays that have less than praise-worthy grades. Almost always it is due to a careless mistake or not having read/followed the instructions. Maybe with this new found neatness will come more focus to detail. We can hope!

First Grades of 4th Grade

Well, Friday Will brought home his first graded papers from 4th grade. All were either math or social studies, which means they were from Mr. P's class. He likes to put grades on things. Last year, none of Will's math pages actually had scores on them, but apparently this year they will!

So, for the most part they were good. I still can't get over the fact that an 83 is a C. What is up with that? An 83 used to be a solid B. But, not now. Not at Loveland. So on Will's first Social Studies paper he got a C. An 83/C. Unfortunately, 3 of the points he missed were because he did not capitalize River as in the Mississippi River. Three times he missed that, so to me it is obvious that he does not realize "River" is supposed to be capitalized. I asked him about it when we went over his homework and I was right. He didn't know.

On several of his math pages he got A+'s, which is fantastic. On another he got a B. Again, he gets the work, he just makes careless mistakes. Adding incorrectly, etc... But when you are figuring out a word problem and you make one minor addition error, it changes the final answer. And with numbers, one off makes it wrong!

They did two sets of multiplication facts. How many they could get done in a minute. He did not do too hot on those. Luckily they were not graded on them. He definitely needs to work with flash cards or something, though he says no way, he does not want to. How do you get past that?

Last night he saw me doing Ben's spelling homework with him. Backwriting. He asked me to do it with him. So he brought up his spelling book and we looked at his words for the week. After we did the spelling words I decided to do some multiplication facts on his back. It worked and I was proud of myself. He thought it felt good and enjoyed doing it. So, he didn't realize we were actually practicing!!!! We only did the 3 facts. He definitely does not know them. I will try again tonight. I need to find some sort of something to reward him with, encourage him to practice. Just getting a good grade does not seem to be enough incentive, unfortunately. I don't know why and it frustrates me. I don't know how to make him care about his work.

Mom, have you ever had to repeat a grade?

That is the question Will has been asking me. That is after only one week of school. Yikes!

He says 4th grade gets harder and harder every day and that he doesn't know if he will make it to 5th.

Poor baby. That worries me a little bit. Not that he actually won't make it to 5th grade, but that he already thinks it is hard. He was saying this at the end of day 4!

So, I had talked to him a little bit about what he thought was hard. He couldn't really tell me, but I told him that if it really starts to seem to hard that he needs to tell me or Mrs. C or Mr. P. That we are all here to make sure he gets to 5th grade. I told him that we can get help from a tutor or he can maybe stay after school a little bit with the teacher or stay in at lunch if he has something that he really is having trouble with.

I am debating whether or not to send an email to Mrs. C about his concerns. I want to touch base with her about him and about his experiences in 3rd grade. But, I kinda want to give her enough time to form an opinion on Will in her classroom. Maybe at the end of this week I will send her an email. That will give him the rest of this week to see how it is going and what he is thinking now.

I do have a feeling, though, that we could be in for a long year with him.

The Day Before 4th Grade

So tomorrow is the big day. 4th grade begins. Today is "Preview Day". We get to go this afternoon and meet Will's (and Ben's) teachers. I am now very excited to get back into the swing of school and the routine that goes along with it.

My boys are sick of each other and I am sick of them being sick of each other.

So, I was rereading some of what I wrote about Will last year and his struggles. Just trying to refresh my memory, which can be short. (I wonder where Will gets it from!) I need to speak with, email, meet with Mrs. C and Mr. P early on to let them know the struggles we were having last year. I just want to figure out exactly what to tell them.

Inconsistency I think is a key word. His work proved to be very inconsistent last year. Also his test taking is rather inconsistent. There are some focus issues, too. Not sure why. I would love for his teachers to speak with Mrs. K and Ms. R from last year. I feel like their input would be invaluable to his new teachers. They could gain real insight from them.

Summer is almost gone

School starts a week tomorrow. I can't believe it. My first-born is going to be in 4th grade. CRAZY!

We picked up teacher placement and I couldn't be happier. Will is in Mrs. Craig's class with Mr. Price as his switch teacher. What that means is that Mrs. Craig teaches Reading and Language Arts and Science, while Mr. Price teaches Math and Social Studies.

I have heard wonderful things about both of them. Plus we know just about every single boy in the class. Yeah! The letter that came home from Mrs. Craig was also reassuring to me that Will has been placed with a perfect teacher for him.

Now, I just need to reread my old posts to remind me of all the troubles we were having last year. (Hard to believe I could forget)I do remember that it was recommended that we meet with his teachers towards the beginning of the school year. I want to be prepared going into this year by knowing what we are looking for!

OAT Results Have Arrived

Will's test scores arrived in the mail today.

He did ok. He scored just about the same on the reading portion as he did in the fall. He scored a 421 (420 last fall). That falls in the Accelerated range, so that is good.

Math is another story. He scored a 409. That falls in the Proficient range, but toward the bottom. 400 is the bottom. The 3rd graders did not take the math portion last fall so we do not have anything to compare it to. Except his peers. 32% of all 3rd graders fell in the proficent range. 9 % under that. That means that 59% of his peers did better than he did...

I guess that is not exactly average now is it? But it is considered proficient and is meeting grade standards so as far as the school is concerned he is fine. But, is he?

I feel like, at this point, we need to pull a tutor in. We now have these test results and can show a potential tutor where his strengths and weaknesses are. I am leaning towards contacting one of the 4th grade teachers that tutor and seeing if we can't at least get him some math tutoring. I know he will hate it, but I think he needs it.

His teachers suggested it.

His father doesn't want to spend the money on it.

Ugh! I need to get him on the same page. How can $40/hr. X 1 or 2 days a week for 8 weeks be too much money if we are talking about having our son in a good position to start 4th grade? Let's see that would be $320 for 1 hour a week or $640 for 2 hours a week. Yes, it is a lot of money. But, we can't do it.

I have been diligent about the boys doing their Summer Bridge book, though diligent means we do it when we are not having sleepovers or are out too late. They have gotten through 15 days of it. It is a good book and tough, but I don't think enough to draw Will in to where he ought to be.

Chris thinks maybe his 4th grade teacher will inspire him to do better in math. What? Really, now we are just waiting for the right teacher to inspire him? I don't know about that.

I am due some moolah from Greg, maybe I will throw it into this tutoring. Sucks I have to do that, but...

Results of Big Meeting

So, this morning was the big meeting. Two teachers (MS. R and Ms. K), school counselor (sc), school psychologist (sp), campus principal and ME!

The sp began the meeting by saying that typically when meetings such as these are called it is about a child she has heard of. Whether through intervention programs, behavior problems, etc... but that she had never heard Will's name until now. She assured me that that was a good thing.

She told me about the various disabilities the schools are required to test for.

She asked the teachers to tell her about Will. We heard a lot about his careless mistakes, lack of paying attention, pension for asking questions already covered, and more. We went over some of his work that he struggled with, why he seemed to struggle with it. She asked the teachers great questions to get a better idea of Will's capabilities.

At one point she asked Ms. R how one of the examples of work compared to her students on IEP's. She asked if it was something she would have given to those students and she said no. They never would have been able to complete that assignment. Will's mistakes were careless errors, not a lack of understanding how to complete the work.

They all agreed that he is typical because there is such a wide range of typical. There are plenty of children that struggle. Will is just very inconsistent. He can have some good weeks/test/assignments and then followed by an N or an F on something. That is the hard part.

We looked at his OAT scores. We looked at his second grade testing, which I was convinced was very mediocre at best. They told me that the scores were very average which was good. Yes, they said good.

Bottom line is that the sp sees no reason to suspect a learning disability. She says we need to meet with his 4th grade teacher very early on in the year and express our concerns with what has been going on with him in 3rd grade. She thinks it is important to get that known up front. The teachers suggest we do some tutoring for Will this summer, which I had already been considering. (I just have to get Dad on board with that one)

The principal asked me if I had filled out the placement evaluation, which I did, in length. That will help the sc make the placement. And, I know the sc well, so I have high hopes for Will's fourth grade teacher. I am sure she will place him with someone that can handle all of this.

I came away feeling good. I don't feel like I have all the answers. I did ask about all this talk of lack of attention and careless mistake making. She suggested we wait until 4th grade and see how the year begins before we go looking into ADHD as a possibility. So I do think we will go into 4th grade on a positive note and with everyone on the same page.

Big Meeting Scheduled

Monday morning, 7:50 a.m.

And I am petrified! I am meeting with both of Will's teachers, the school counselor, the school psychologist and an administrator. Yikes!

I have no idea what to expect and I am a bit worried because in a sense I am the one who called this meeting. I didn't really, but I am the one who sent the email to our counselor stating that I was going to pursue testing on my own this summer.

So, again, I am a little worried. Worried that we are all going to sit down together and they are all going to look at me and say, "OK- we are all here, now what? Why the heck do you think your kid has a problem?"

I spent yesterday afternoon gathering up examples of his work and assessments from this year, his report cards, his interim reports, his standardized testing scores and copies of the email to and from his teachers.

I am going to pour over those tonight and extract the things that raise red flags for me. I want to be prepared. I want to look like I know what I am talking about, even though I don't!

Actually, I am going to be completely honest and tell them that I have no idea if Will is a typical 3rd grader or not. They have brought things to my attention over the year, his grades have remained B's and C's, he continues to work inconsistently. Maybe that is typical. I have no idea, I have nothing to compare it to. No older siblings. Only my friend's children who all seem to be getting straight A's.

I'm not going to let him slip through the cracks. And I think that is exactly what would happen to him if I wasn't pursuing all this. He does not have BIG problems, but for some reason he is not excelling. And I do believe he is capable of that. If they can tell me my child is destined to be a B and C student I can accept that. But, I don't think that is the case.

I need to do a lot of praying between now and Monday morning. A lot of digging, a lot of thinking and a lot of note taking. I want to go in to that meeting with confidence.

Update

Not a lot to update. Just that I received an email back from the counselor last Friday. She said that she passed my question along to the school psychologist, as she is the one that handles the testing.

She also added that the school will not provide testing unless it is shown that Will has not been making academic progress. I have no idea what this means exactly.

He is definitely learning. I just think he learns differently. I think sometimes it takes him longer to learn something. I think he learns but sometimes has trouble translating what he has learned into answers on a test. Or rushes through his test or work and does not get the correct answer down.

I dunno. I get such mixed reactions from people about Will. Some friends think I absolutely should be getting him tested and that there must be problems going on here that we need to get to the bottom of.

My mom seems a bit more unsure like me. She thinks he needs tutoring and thinks that maybe there is something more there.

The teachers and school do not really seem concerned. They did earlier in the year and have made concessions/modifications for Will. That has definitely helped some. They don't think he is going to qualify for an IEP or anything if I have him tested.

Ack. I am waiting on that call or email from the school psychologist. This all seems to just move in slow motion... No one is in a rush, yet school will be out in 2 weeks. Hmpf!

Letter to the Counselor

Sort of like a 'Letter to the Editor'.

OK- maybe not.

Anyway, I just wanted to cut and paste the letter I just emailed to Will's counselor. I am done playing these head games with myself. I am making a decision, finally, and acting on it. Thus, this letter:

S,

I am definitely going to pursue having Will tested formally. His issues have certainly fluctuated this year and made it hard for me to know, at times, whether this is the route to take. But the issues always seem to come back and I think that is the bottom line. I worry that he is going to get to 4th grade and the same problems will keep cropping up and we will be no closer to solving his problems than we are right now.

He is not failing. But he is consistently getting B’s and C’s. That is fine with me if that is the best he can do, but I don’t think it is. I have a question for you. Do/Can most kids get straight A’s in 3rd grade? It seems like that must be more typical. 3rd grade is still “easy” and the teachers still provide a lot of guidance and help. I know that Lori and Molly have made modifications for Will in the classroom to help him, yet he still is not getting A’s. I can’t help but feel like there might be something underlying there. Only testing is going to provide that answer.

If we do the testing and nothing turns up then I know I have the problem of a child that really needs extra motivation, pushing and prodding and may not be a straight A student. At least I will know. But, if something does turn up then we can get to the root of what is going on and deal with it. His teachers from here on out could be made aware and hopefully he could be placed with teachers that would be accommodating to him. I think Will is in this fuzzy area between not having a “huge” problem and yet not being able to excel. I worry that those are the kids that fall between the cracks and I don’t want that to happen with Will.

So, what is my next step? Do I seek a private psychologist to do this testing? Do I have the testing done through the school system? I really have no idea which is the best route to go. I know it can be very expensive which is why it might be best to start with the school. But, it is the end of the year and that may not be an option at this point. Either way I plan to get it done so that I can have some answers before 4th grade.

Thanks so much for your help with this S!

Is every child capable of straight A's?

This is a question I have been asking myself this year. I asked a good friend of mine, a former teacher, this question the other day. She said that in 3rd grade, unequivocally, YES! She thinks all "typical" children are capable. Some may have to work considerably harder to get the A's, though.

So, why, then, is Will not able to do that? And why does it matter? Actually I don't think it does. Maybe I am caught up in the grade and I shouldn't be. Ultimately, mastery is what we want. We want Will to master what he is learning so that he can build on it. If he does not master 3rd grade skills it is going to be really hard to learn the 4th grade skills.

So, my question now becomes, how do I know if he has mastered these skills? A child that is getting straight A's is showing that he/she has mastered what they need to know. But, what about a child getting B's and C's? Does that mean he has not mastered the skills?

Not necessarily.

That is why I am at the point where I really want to push the testing. I am thinking I am going to contact Dr. M, who Chris and I met with about the bedwetting last year. We both liked him a lot and I think he does psychoeducational testing. I remember he had given us some sort of questionnaire to fill out and I did fill it out, but I never sent it back to him. If I recall correctly, when I filled it out it kind of raised some red flags for me, about Will.

So, I am going to get in touch with him next week and see what he has to say. See what he charges. All this stuff seems to be so very expensive. I found one psychologist online that does this testing and she charges $160/hour for testing (which is 4-6 hours), $160/hour for reviewing the test adn $160/hour for our follow-up meeting and planning session. Ugh. Easily $1000 right there. I may find Dr. M is the same thing and then I've got to figure some things out!

Summer is coming

Decisions need to be made, research needs to be done. I have determined that I want Will to be tutored this summer. The decision is between a tutoring program, like Huntington Learning Center or using a private tutor.

I now have a list of great tutors that charge an average of $35-40/hour. Yep, that's right. Man, I should become I tutor, I think. It's gotta be better than Real Estate right now!

Anyway, I need to get pricing on Huntington. But, I do think Huntington is going to be the way we go.

After consulting with my educational guru, a.k.a. my friend Tricia, I think he needs the diagnostic testing they provide. I think that will go a long way in determining if we have a real problem going on here or not. They can then tailor the tutoring to his needs.

If we go with a private tutor, they don't do the testing part. So how the heck do they know what he needs help on? Though, I was thinking of using a 4th grade Loveland teacher, and he/she would at least know what a typical 3rd grader would be capable of vs. what Will is doing. But... I think we have been chasing this idea of testing for too long now. It is time to act.

I feel frutrated with myself. We have been dealing with issues off and on since mid-December and I am still no further along then talking about what Will needs. Why have I not acted? Why have we not gotten testing done? Why am I beating this dead horse?

I guess because it has been a fluctuating problem. Good and bad. Sometimes things are just rolling along fantastically and then I find out the kid can't tell the difference between a noun and a verb. What? But then the next week he aces conjunctions. Really?

Ugh. Anyway, tutoring this summer, in one format or another, can only help. It might break the bank, but you know what? My kid's education and self esteem are worth it! You can't put a price on that. My husband thinks you can, but I am here to tell him you can't!

Email conversation with teachers

I didn't realize I never posted the outcome of my email to Mrs. Ketchum. I ended up following that email up with one to Ms. Rockett as well. I wanted her take on how Will is doing in her subjects.

I received a lengthy email from Ms. Rockett:
Hi Jenny,
Lori and I have been discussing Will's progress and we are both seeing a lot of inconsistencies in his performance here at school. On one hand we feel like it wouldn't hurt to have him tested and on the other hand we just aren't sure if it is necessary. We both have students who have disabilities but Will doesn't seem to be as academically challenged over all. There are times when Will really grasps the concepts that we are working on.

I think both Lori and myself feel like some of the inconsistencies are due to Will being rushed or hurried as is the case with the time line. I do believe that he saw the word panhandle and just wrote it down. Unfortunately, he needs to slow down and really read before answering. On the other hand it seems as though some of the concepts are really hard for him to grasp such as the L..A concepts.

I am giving a reading common assessment today. Let's see how he does. I believe that he did well on the last one given in March. I will be very explicate with instructions and even ask him if he needs any direction. Maybe we will have a little better insight after I grade it.

I wish we could give you more concrete direction, but without being medical professionals it is hard. Will doesn't fit any of the typical molds that we usually deal with. Also, both Lori and I are fairly new teachers so we don't have years of experience to base things on. We both feel like Will is making a lot of effort to be more in tune to what is going on. Another question to ask yourself is, if Will is tested, how will this benefit him? He is not consistently low enough to warrant an IEP, and we are making as many modifications as we can to ensure his success, so the other option is medication and both Lori and I are not qualified to make any assumptions about that. On the other hand it couldn't hurt to have him tested. I am no help am I??? Anyway, let's get together sometime in the next few weeks and we can discuss if any action should be taken before the end of the year.

Talk to you soon,
Molly Rockett

I responded that this is exactly how I am feeling right now. Wondering if it is necessary to test, wondering if it would hurt anything. I really appreciate their perspective and am grateful that they care so much. I did get an email from Lori as well and it concurred everything Molly said here.

So, we are once again in a holding pattern. In a way I feel like we are getting no where, but at the same time I don't know where we could be. This is all very frustrating!

OAT is next week

The OAT testing is next week for 3rd graders in our district. Will is going to be tested in both reading and math.

He brought home a version of last years OAT math test today that he did in class last week for practice. He got 16 out of 26 correct. Hmpf...

I went over it with him this afternoon, which apparently they had also done in class today. He very reluctantly went over it with me. He didn't think he should have to. I can tell he is back in a funk. School is not very exciting to him these days. He is struggling and he knows it. I really think he has to try harder. Things don't just come easily and he has never been a kid that wants to try harder.

Anyway, we went over the test. 6 of the 10 points he missed were what I would consider careless mistakes. Had he read the questions correctly, slowed down, double checked or whatever he doesn't do, he should have gotten these 6 right. They were easy. They were concepts he knows.

I pointed this out to him. He says he knows. I tried to explain to him that on these standardized tests they are graded by a computer, not Mrs. Ketchum. If he makes a silly/careless mistake, the computer just marks it wrong. It doesn't think to itself, "Hmmm, this Will kid knows this information, why did he get it wrong". No the computer just marks it wrong and goes on to the next question. I told him he will end up with a really low score if he doesn't slow down and focus.

Again, he seemed to get this, but will he put it into effect?

I still have not seen a grade for the Reading Common Assessment from last week. This was one Ms. Rockett really wanted to see to use as a judgement on where Will is right now. I am not sure what to expect.

5 out of 10 missed

So, What's going on? I found out he scored a 5 out of 10 on his third quiz on verbs, adjectives and nouns. After all the review work we did and game playing online. I am not shocked. I really didn't think he had it figured out yet.

Unfortunately this grade counts. Mrs. Ketchum has to move on, of course. She says she will work on it when she can in class and I will do the same at home.

I printed some worksheets for a great website I found today. I printed a specific Verb Worksheet for Will to do tonight. He had 22 sentences where he had to circle the action verb. Then about 15 words listed and he had to label whether they were a noun or an action verb.

He got 100% correct.

How the heck did he do that? The only think I can figure is that he was told specifically what he was looking for in the sentence. He did not have to look at a word and decide what part of speech it was, which requires understanding the context of the word. I think simply identifying the verb is significantly easier. In the second part of the worksheet he had to look at the words and identify them. Again he aced it. Why? How?

I am getting really confused again about whether I should be pushing for some testing for him. I am going to call an old friend tomorrow and ask her opinion. She is a reading specialist in a different school district. I am curious to hear her take on what we are dealing with. I don't know if I am creating a bigger deal out of this than needs to be.

I emailed Mrs. Ketchum this evening and asked her opinion on testing or not, too. I just feel kind of lost right now. Again.

This whole school not being a breeze thing is not working for me. This is not how it was supposed to be!

Adjectives, Nouns and Verbs... oh my!

This is Will's latest struggle. We just got back from Spring Break on Monday and already he is having issues. This time his issues are in language arts. He is having a very difficult time differentiating the parts of speech.

Particularly, adjectives, nouns and verbs.

I got a phone call from Mrs. Ketchum yesterday afternoon. She called to tell me that Will and the class had taken a test on Monday on these parts of speech. Will, along with 7 other classmates failed this test. So they were given the opportunity to go over it again and practice and Mrs. Ketchum gave them a Retest. Well, as it turns out Will and one other child failed it again. She was calling to tell me that she is going to give them a third test today. She asked me if I would work on it at home with him last night.

So, I told Will about the phone call. Apparently he knew she was going to be calling me. I went over the retest with him, verbally, and he got them all right. Yay! We talked about what each of these parts of speech are and he totally gets that. So, I wrote out my own sentences for him. I underlined a word and asked him to identify whether it was a noun, adjective or verb.

He did it on his own and then brought it to me. There were 12 sentences and he missed 5. That is failing. Hmpf! I was so frustrated. I could not find any rhyme or reason for why he was missing them. If I talked through it with him he seemed to catch on quickly to what the correct answer was, but on his own he missed a lot.

I wrote another page of sentences, 13 this time, and saved them for morning. After breakfast today, before he went to the bus stop I gave him this test. Again, he did the work on his own and again he missed 5 of them. Ugh! I don't know what to do.

Practice, I guess. I did find some games on a few websites that help practice parts of speech. He didn't do all that great at them either last night, but it is practice. We will just have to keep plugging away.

I am anxious to find out how he does on this third test today. I am guessing he will do as well, or as poorly, as he has done on all of them. Unless he is able to make it click somehow.

Why won't it click, though? Why can't he understand this? It is really kind of simple, isn't it? Ben was getting all the right answers on the games Will was trying to play last night. If his 7 yr old brother can get it off the bat why can't he get it after all this review?

Is there a comprehension issue? Does this prove that? It seems like when he is reading the sentence he isn't finding the meaning of the words there. I don't know if that makes sense, but that is what it seems like to me. I don't know what else can explain it.

What a great teacher!

I am definitely beginning to appreciate what a great teacher Mrs. K is. I really think she is extraordinary.

Yesterday I was in her classroom to volunteer and it happened to be during a math unit test. It also happened to be Will's birthday which he was VERY excited about! Mrs. K came to me after the test was over and told me that she doesn't think this is going to be one of his best tests. She felt he was lacking focus because of all the excitement revolving around his birthday. (I was there, also, to hand out treats) She told me that she made him take it back two times after he tried to turn it in to recheck his work. Apparently he finished it pretty quickly.

She told me, though, that she is amazed at the way he approaches some of the math problems. She has told me this before. But, with fractions, he did it in a way (don't ask me to explain) that nobody else did. In fact she wasn't teaching it this way, either, but she said it was actually the safest way to do it. So all week she has been teaching it her way and then saying, "Or you can do it Will's Way". How great is that?

So, anyway, back to the test. When I picked Will up yesterday she had not had a chance to grade them yet. She offered to get it for me to look at, but I decided not to. It was his birthday after all and I didn't want to go into the rest of the afternoon and evening knowing he had failed his test.

Well this morning I got an email from Mrs. K. She said he got an 81%! Now in my book that is a B. Unfortunately, for him it is a C. But... that is MUCH better than the F we were both worried about. She also told me in the email that he had corrected one of the 2 pt. problems that he had had wrong the first time he turned it in. So, she was glad to see that he actually did check his work and fix something and not just look at it and say he did.

I am so thankful she sent me that email. I am thankful that she cares so much and knows I was anxious to see how he did. She does such a great job teaching these kids and also figuring out what certain kids need to succeed, like Will. It is hard for me to put into words, but that is the gist of it.

I would be thrilled to find out Mrs. K is going to loop up to 4th grade next year. I am sure that won't be the case, but if it would I would be the first one on board to sign Will up to be in her class again!

If only...

Well, Will brought home is graded math unit test from last week. You know, the one where he skipped two pages? Yeah that one.

He got a 91%, which is a B+ in this crazy grading system. He only missed one small part of a problem. He had another point knocked off because of skipping the pages. He could have had an A, had he paid better attention.

I showed him that and he understood. Now, don't get me wrong, I am so happy that he got a B+. I mean it shows that he knows what he is doing, he understands the concepts and when he concentrates he can do well. I don't mean to sound like I am not happy with that.

However, when he didn't get an A all because he somehow missed two entire pages of a test, I get a little frustrated. Rightly so, I think! I just don't want him to feel like he can't make me happy. Which I don't think I am making him feel that way, but I just want to conciously be aware that I could come off that way to him if I am not careful.

So he has moved on to fractions in math now. He does not have a lot of confidence in his ability to do them. He says he does not understand them. He breezed through most of his homework the other night and seemed to get it. We shall see.

He has been preparing for a presentation on Friday. He had to choose a biography, read it, answer questions, create a costume and then practice a presentation on what he learned. He chose Daniel Boone. We get to go see it on Friday, I can't wait! He has been practicing at home and at school. I'll post pictures!

I don't get it

Really, I just don't get it.

Will was home for three days with the flu. A total of 5 days down if you include the weekend. So, as I mentioned in my last post he misses his math unit test on Friday.

Mrs. Ketchum had sent extra review work for him, thank goodness. So, even though I made my poor sick child do that on Thursday night, I also made him do it again on Tuesday night. I knew he was going back to school and would be taking that unit test.

He was as prepared as he was going to be.

I picked Will up from school and asked him how his unit test went. He told me he stayed in at lunch to do it and he thought he did "good".

We get home after picking up Ben and I check my email. I had an email from Mrs. Ketchum:

Hi Jenny,
I was really anxious to check Will's Math test after school... he did well so far, but skipped 2 pages! He took the test during recess since he had to stay in anyway and he finished it quickly so I kept telling him to double check EVERYTHING and reread questions and answers. He said he did, but I don't know how he could've missed two pages then? He did do well on the harder multi-step problems in the test, so he was careful with the questions he did. I just wanted to fill you in. I'll probably give him a chance tomorrow to finish the test and take off a point for skipping.
~Lori

WHAT?????

How can he miss two entire pages? I don't understand. I don't get it.

I asked him about it and he was shocked. He said he thought he did them all. Clearly he did not. I asked him if he thought he deserved a chance to do those two pages he skipped (because I am not so sure he does). I told him that Mrs. Ketchum seemed to be willing to let him do them, though he would miss a point for having skipped them. I told him that if this was 4th grade he would just get an F and not a second chance.

Ugh!!!!!

I am so frustrated. I can't tell if he cares or not. He seemed genuinely surprised, he seems to want to finish the test, but he didn't seem to affected by my statement about the F. I also went as far as to tell him that if he did this too many times in 4th grade he would get an F in his classes and if he gets too many F's he doesn't get to go on to 5th grade.

I don't know if that was mean or warranted or whatever, but I am so frustrated. How do you not see 2 pages on a test?

The flu hits Cedar Ridge

Well, Will is now in quarantine with the flu. He missed school yesterday and therefore missed his Math unit test and a spelling test.

Mrs. Ketchum had sent home some additional review for Will to go over in preparation for this test. Hopefully he will be better by Monday and can make it up then.

She emailed me about his timed multiplication quiz on Thursday. The 3rd graders are expected to be able to complete 30 problems in 3 minutes. Will was so proud to tell me he completed 38, "he thought". I asked him if he got them all right. He said he thought that he did. But, he kept going back to the fact that he got 38 of them done.

I reminded him that the number he got done is not as important as the number he got right. I just had a feeling he had a lot of mistakes.

Well, mom was wrong! He finished 34 of them and had 33 of them correct. The one he missed was 8x10. He put down 8, instead of 80.

I am so proud of him and he was proud of himself!

Conference Outcome

"We are seeing a lot of good effort" was the consensus from Will's teachers at our conference this morning.

Hmmmm.... What does that mean? He is trying a lot harder, but still not getting it? He is trying and seeing good results?

Well, it seems it is a mixed bag.

He is paying more attention and focusing more. He is asking more questions. It seems when he tries harder and puts more effort into his work the outcome is better. Not perfect, but better. That is good.

Both teachers seem pleased. He is making progress but it is a work in progress.

His reading teacher showed us some of his work from the Tom Edison book he just read in class. There were four ovals on the page and he was supposed to fill each one with four different happenings from the book. She suggested they go back and look at the chapter titles to remember what was in each chapter. So, he wrote a the title of each chapter in each oval. He then wrote a sentence about something that happened in each chapter.

Yep, a sentence. No detail. Nothing else but a sentence.

So, Event 1 read like this: Tom's First Experiment Tom tried to warm some eggs. Yep, that was it. Tom tried to warm some eggs. Will didn't say why he was trying to warm the eggs (to make them hatch), Will didn't say how he tried to warm the eggs. No, he didn't. Well, that answer was not good enough. No detail.

That pretty much describes how he filled in the other three ovals. He received an S- on this assignment. So, we brought it home and went over it. We had him give us more detail. I knew that he knew this stuff. He had been talking to me about this Tom Edison book. He was excited about it and enjoyed it. He even told me some of the stories. The full stories. The same stories he could only come up with one sentence to write about.

His teachers think, as do we, that he is trying to get away with doing his work in as little time and with as little effort as possible.

He has shown some evidence of spending more time on his math. He wants to get it right and is asking Mrs. K for her help. She is beginning to track whether he is having difficulty with oral instruction vs. written instruction. Just to track if there is a pattern or not. That will be interesting to find out about.

All in all it was a good conference. I think we are all pleased with the progress, yet agree that we have a ways to go...

Tomorrow is conference day

Will is off school tomorrow for conferences. Ours is at 10:50. We are taking Will to hang out with my dad during the conference. I am looking forward to it and curious to hear both teacher's reports.

Seemingly he is doing better. He is bringing home better grades. Though it sounds like, according to Will anyway, that he has had two days in the last week where he has had to stay inside and miss recess because of work he did not get done in math.

So... I am very curious to see what they have to say. Is he doing better because he is applying himself more? Is he doing better because he is being made to do better? Is he really doing better or does it just seem that way?

All questions I hope will be answered tomorrow.

He got an A, he got an A

OK- well, it was actually an A-, but who cares! It was a Third Grade Common Reading Assessment. These are practices for the OAT test he will take again in March.

The students are given a passage to read and then they are expected to answer questions about it. He did not do so hot on the last one of these. Come to find out that he had not gone back into the passage to find the answers.

Well this time he did! He only missed one question, the very last one. He told me that he did go back into the reading to find the answers which is awesome!

I am sooooo proud!

An S- and a 100

Those are the grades Will brought home from school yesterday on two different items.

He received the S- on some sort of Geography assignment in Ms. Rockett's class. He misspelled one word, did not capitalize Great Lakes and got two answers wrong. Hmpf! Unfortunately there was no note sent home with it, so I am not sure if this was a quiz of sorts or if he had the information in front of him and just had to pull the answers from it. I am guessing it was the latter. I meant to ask Will about it but he went to a friend's after school yesterday and I forgot to ask him this morning. I'll get to the bottom of it this afternoon.

I was so proud, as was he, to see the 100 on the reading assignment. It was two pages of comprehension questions from the book he just finished reading. He got them all right. But... he goes on to tell me that when he first turned it in he had skipped a question. Ok. Then he goes on to say that he turned it in, Ms. Rockett looked at it, made a funny face (as demonstrated by Will during this narrative) and then told him "I think you have every single one of these wrong but one". What?

So, I looked closer at this glorious 100 paper in front of me and I could see remnants of erased answers on every question. So, while he did get a 100 it is only because Ms. Rockett allowed him to go back and correct ALL of the wrong answers he had.

Why? Why? Why? Why did he have all the wrong answers? Why was he able to go back and correct them? Why is it that he obviously was able to find the right answers when made to go back, how on earth did he miss them in the first place?

Again I need to talk to him about this some more. I think it probably warrants an email to Ms. Rockett, too. It is so frustrating to me.

No consistency!

This picture shows about how I am feeling about all this snow! Crazy!

Another snow day today. We got to school both Monday and Tuesday this week, but then for some reason God decided we needed another 10 inches of snow. Ack!

Yesterday was the first day of Will's after school math class. It is an enrichment class taught by a 4th grade teacher. It is a male teacher, which Will has not experienced yet. Will was not very excited about taking this math class, but I convinced him to let me sign him up for it. OK- to be honest, I bribed him into taking it. I don't know if he even remembers that at this point. That was back during Christmas break!

Anyway, with all the excitement of the falling blizzard I didn't really get to hear much about his math class. He told me Mr. R yelled at some of the kids, told them they needed to be listening. He named the kids in the class that he knew. Beyond that I didn't hear much about it.

The description sounded wonderful. It promises he will grow in math confidence and learn to make number sense. So... hopefully we will see some improvement.

In his regular math class they are working on multiplication. Will is really excited about this and seems to be doing fairly well so far with it. We are going to start working on flash cards at home. Third graders are expected to know multiplication facts up to 50 by the end of the year.

With all of this inconsistency I am curious to see how our whole system is going to work with Will. Just as I posted in my last post, it will be interesting with all this time off to see how it comes together.

What will 3 days off school do...

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!

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!

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.

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.

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?

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...

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...

I am waiting on a return call or email from the school counselor, who happens to be Will's former 1st grade teacher. (Who at one conference told us Will has a difficult time focusing when being read to.) After some reading, thinking and talking to others I feel that we are at the juncture where we need to look into some testing for Will.
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.