You are growing up, Son!

As many of you know, Ethan struggles with auditory processing disorder which effects his expressive language as well. What that means in lay terms is what he hears is different than what we sometimes say, how he "stores" that information in his brain is sometimes all jumbled up, and then how he recalls, or expresses what he wants to say, is sometimes/often times not very well "put together" for a boy his age.

Ethan IS however a very bright kid, and he will often do or say things that totally surprise me, and actually leave me baffled as to why this or that is dead on, while other things go all wacky.

Right now however, we are having this "dance" between him and I because of the transition from a 3rd grade, somewhat "relaxed" homeschooler to what will be required to prepare him for middle school...which will be here in two short years.

Ethan is capable of many things, however, when the going gets tough, he just wants to blow it off. This week has shown him AND me that he is capable of so much more than he ever thought able. We started a reading curriculum to really help with his reading comprehension. During our testing last year, while he actually scored REALLY WELL in most areas, the one thing he needed help with was inferencing, finding main ideas, etc. This curriculum that we have addresses all these and more.

Today Ethan had to take his first quiz to wrap up what he's been studying this week. He was sent off to a quite room so that he could read the story and answer the 20+ questions. Many of the questions required him to REALLY read the directions, to fully understand what they were asking, but honestly, I did not think that it was impossible for him...perhaps just stretching him a little.

There was lots of moaning going on, and back and forths on why this is too hard, etc. But after sitting down with him and helping to "see" that he WAS actually capable of finding the answers, digging down deep, and applying himself, that he would do just fine. Guess what?

I was right.

He scored a 94%. "A"

We have several things this year that are going to stretch him as a student, but I think when we look back at the end of the year, we will both agree that it was time WELL SPENT.