Hope

Thing Two really got screwed by the genepool.  He's just as smart as his sister and brother, but his language processing whammy means that he has to work much harder than they do for the same results in school.  It's both exhausting and demoralizing for the poor kid.  It's taken some doing to convince him that he isn't stupid--I don't think we've entirely succeeded, either--and it doesn't help that both of his siblings merrily traipse off to G&T at school while his pullouts are for speech and social therapy.

So, it was a very pleasant surprise when I received the email from his homeroom teacher on Tuesday afternoon.  "The class is due to take the Chapter 2 math test on Friday, but he's clearly very comfortable with the concepts and I'd like to give him the test tomorrow and then extension work for the rest of the week if that's OK with you."  Um, let me think about that for a second...YES PLEASE.  (And while I'm at it, thank you for noticing that he's really good at math so quickly.  And for being so proactive about it.  Clearly you're seeing more than a very wiggly kid with an IEP when you look at my son, and bless you for it.)

He duly took the test on Wednesday, and it hasn't come home yet so I have no idea how he did.  However, the math homework that he brought home today was a whole different animal from what I've been seeing to date: reasoning-based and multi-step.  (Any educators reading this will recognize the influence of the PARCC standards, I suspect.)  I had to walk through the first problem with him, but after that he was gone...he grabbed that ball and ran with it.  And he was proud of himself for earning the "hard" homework, too.  It sure as hell wasn't from their regular textbook, wherever it came from.

A few years ago, Thing Two had an incredible preschool teacher who almost single-handedly dragged him out from behind the eight-ball: she spent hours and hours of her own time coming up with activities and resources targeted specifically to his needs and the progress he made in her care was nothing short of remarkable.   Maybe third grade will be another of those years for him...dare I believe that he's been gifted with the same sort of teacher again?