Mirrored Writing

Have you ever seen the servers write their name upside down at Macaroni Grill? I waited tables there for years and really had the backwards cursive signature down pat. It took practice though. It wasn’t like I just automatically write in reverse although sometimes it looks like my daughter SJ does.

 

left handed mirrored writing

She hasn’t been writing for long, but in the past couple years I have noticed a trend where she not only writes from right to left, but the letters are often backwards as well.

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Above is a drawing of her dad teaching her to ride her bike. The names are Daddy, Ezra, Sedona, and Mommy. Not all spelled correctly, but clearly written starting on the right. Writing her family’s names is one of her favorite things to do and it always looks something like this.

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Of course I freaked out a little bit when I saw this repeatedly because she has been a detail oriented perfectionists since she was two. I could tell story after story of how visual and focused she is. I think some of it comes from her delayed access to sound. So I knew it must be something that was a mix up going on inside her mind and not just her being silly or sloppy.

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It sounds like I am the perfectionist, but I am not! Not at all. Thanks to her speech delay I have never expected her to be able to write at age four. I was just worried because I hated the idea of her as a special needs child to have another hurdle to face.

I do realize dyslexia is more than just backwards letters, but at the same time I didn’t like how consistent she was with this mirrored writing. All kids mix up letters and left and right from time to time, but this was so thorough!

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The above is her copy of the “EAT MOR CHIKIN” sign from Chic-fil-A. So in this case she was looking directly at the message she was copying. The words below were completely from memory and those are some of her sight words. I, am, the, little.

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Here is the beginning of the alphabet (she did this in the car recently)

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And here is the same image MIRRORED. There are a few backwards letters like J, N, and P, but she’s still learning. I think if she knew the “right” way to write them then she probably would have written all of them backwards!

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I could give other examples about reading or journaling from back to front, but I have been asking about this for years and the experts didn’t seem concerned. She goes to a special private school where they give frequent assessments and go through everything with a fine tooth comb. They told me not to worry. When she is at school with the lined paper and direct instruction she seems to be doing everything the correct way from left to right. Most importantly she really enjoys reading and writing. And she absolutely loves homework!

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Still, at the last parent teacher conference I brought it up AGAIN and they looked through some samples I brought and explained why the order and precision of her work does not show signs of dyslexia at all. Not that I think dyslexia is the worst thing in the world. Like I said though, she has enough extra obstacles due to her hearing loss without adding any other disabilities.

The more people I talk to and the more I research online it looks like her mirrored writing can probably be attributed to her being left handed. Just one of the many resources I have found to support this is from the Better Health Channel and it says

  • Left-handed children learning to write often write back to front (‘mirror’ writing). This is a natural inclination, not a sign of dyslexia, and will resolve given time, practice and encouragement.

She just has to be the minority in every aspect doesn’t she? That little stinker! I am just joking. I am serious though about being grateful that this whole mystery is pretty much solved.

Have you seen or known any mirror writers? This was a first for me.

By |2015-10-16T14:35:00+00:00October 16, 2015|Schooling, Special Needs|8 Comments

School is Cool

I realize I already talked about school yesterday and don’t want to bore you all, but I do have more to share and I’ll tell you why.

1. I am extremely passionate about education. If we can get our kids to love to learn then the sky is the limits on what they will achieve through self motivation.

2. Public schools get so much bad press and some of it’s deserved, but what about all the of the good, life changing things that happening!? I want to be someone who shines some light on the positive and gives credit where credit is due to all the phenominal teachers out there busting their butts.

3. Lastly, I also love homeschooling families and have a great amount of respect for the mothers that are investing everything into teaching their own children. For all my friends and reader who homeschool it is my hope that some of these ideas could possibly be inspirational.

So here are some fun highlights from this first semester of the 2015/2016 school year.

Kindergarten

Ohhhh, it’s so hard for me to narrow it down. They do so many cool hands on learning activities for each subject and theme it is incredible. The time spent learning about maps is probably my favorite so far. First of all I told you that SJ learned her city, state, and country. She also learned the pledge and I put that video up on youtube this morning so here it is (not perfect, but still a big deal!).

Then with permission from parents they looked up each student’s address in google maps and displayed the homes on the smart board. SJ LOVED this. I was a little reluctant because we live in such a dumpy old house (for my small space peeps the garage isn’t even ours), but at this age the innocence and appreciation children have astounds me and she was so proud of what she calls her “rectangle house”

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Another activity they did with maps was to bring in a stuffed animal from home and leave it at the school overnight. The next day the students went into the class room to find all their furry buddies were gone and there were foot prints leaving the classroom! They posted some of these hilarious photos on the Facebook page. SJ’s toy is the unicorn.

 

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That morning each child was given a clue and a map to try to navigate through the school and find their beloved toy.

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In the end each student was reunited with their animal and they had such a fun time while learning how to use maps!

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 2nd Grade

As with SJ’s school I could just go on and on all day about what Z comes home learning and how they make interesting for the kids.

For the lesson on fossils they used different materials to imprint shells and compare how the materials held the shape, which one worked better and why.

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They also had a lesson in digging with tooth picks for fossils using chocolate chip cookies. The goal was to find as many chocolate chips as possible while keeping them in their original condition. Sounds delicious!

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Also, the second graders have been reading and writing about farms and they had a very special guest who owns a farm, but also happens to be the PRINCIPAL!

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I love their school principal so much he is really involved and I love how he cares so much about connecting with the parents and children.

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Quick story to share what I mean. One day I was picking Z up from school and he said he had something he wanted to show the principal so he bolted through the administrative office down the hall to the principals office. I was mortified! It happened so fast I couldn’t stop him. I mean he might as well have broken into the white house. You just don’t do that! The secretaries came over to see what was needed and just then the principal walked up and Z showed him the little game he made. The principal was completely interested and focused on every word this little 1st grader had to say and was showing some of the other staff members what impressive work they were doing in his class. As I watched and eaves dropped from a  distance I held back the tears.

It was the perfect picture of our heavenly Father and the relationship he has with us. He has authority and power and yet he give us ACCESS so that even if it’s something so simple or seemingly insignificant we have his undivided attention. Oh. How grateful I am for the direct line I have of communion with God. Ephesians 3:12 In him and by faith in him we can approach God with freedom and confidence. Thank you Lord.

I know that’s a total side note, and I understand their have to be some rules and boundaries at school, blah blah blah, but that was such a wonderful reminder for me of Christ’s love for us and now I have it written down.

Okay, so now that this post is really lengthy and all over the place I will just end with saying yes I do love my children’s schools. I am so happy that the Lord has placed us here and divinely orchestrated everything for them to be in such good care. I look forward to the months ahead.

By |2015-10-15T12:23:05+00:00October 15, 2015|Schooling|8 Comments

Kindergarten Success!

I’ll admit to being apprehensive about the day SJ would go to Kindergarten. She has always been so far behind in speech (due to her late identified hearing loss) that I just didn’t know if she would even be ready in time. At the end of her IEP meetings they always ask if I have any goals that I would personally like to add to her plan and I would always say that I want to reach academic goals like knowing the alphabet or being able to count past 10. It’s been a big mountain in my mind. Last evaluation report I received she was at the level of a 3 year old with her speech. My concern was how on earth she would be able to not only catch up with her vocabulary and articulation, but to learn reading, writing, and mathmatics at the same time!

Well, it’s been a little less than 2 months since her first day of Kindergarten and I have been completely blown away with her progress.

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I know I sound dramatic, but I really cannot express enough how amazed I have been with what she has learned in such a small amount of time. It is is unbelievable!!!

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We are talking about a girl that has made great strides in speech, but she rarely talks in complete sentences, doesn’t know the ABC’s (the song, or the order, but she does actually recognize them) and a lot of the words she does know are extremely difficult for her to enunciate. I am not undermining how far she has come, but I didn’t see her being ready for Kindergarten work at all, until she came home and completely proved me wrong!

In the past 8 weeks she has learned when her birthday is, she is really close to knowing all of the months of the year and days of the week.  She learned her city and state and how to spell it! She has come home talking about President Obama, The White House, and saying the pledge of Allegiance! In this video she leaves out “for which it stands”. It’s hit or miss, but she’s almost got it! *Never mind about the video for now. It’s too large to post, but I’ll work on that.

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She knows several sight words and last night when she did her homework she was reading simple familiar sentences on her own and she had to write the missing word with multiple choice sight words. She did the whole lesson on her own (other than one written backwards, which is another topic entirely. I’ll have to tell you all about it sometime)

After she finished her assignment she said “I tell teacher I do homework by myself. Mommy, not help me.” I looked her and said “Yeah. That’s right” and  she said “You proud me.” It wasn’t a question, it wasn’t Are you proud of me? She said it as a fact, because it’s true. I am proud of her. I am so so proud of her. I just about cried in that moment. She has to work twice as hard just to get to the starting point, but she’s doing it.

I was going to do a post about this anyway, but it’s perfect timing because Ohio Valley Voices (SJ’s school) has just a couple days left in a competition to win $10,000 as one of Cincinnati’s favorite nonprofits. They are only a few hundred votes behind first place. It’s easy to vote and it would mean so much to me, SJ, and all the people impacted by this incredible school.

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Go to moment.com> Choose Cincinnati> Fill in your name, email, business name, and phone number> Choose Ohio Valley Voices (I think it’s the 6th one down on the list)>click VOTE. It takes seconds to complete. The short form will ask for a business name. I don’t even know what you are supposed to put there, but I just put OVV, so feel free to do the same.

Thank you so much for supporting such a wonderful cause. I can’t guarantee that we’ll win, but it sure would help the school if we did!

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This has been the best school year so far. I don’t know why I ever doubted.

By |2015-10-14T15:14:16+00:00October 14, 2015|Schooling, Special Needs|0 Comments

Home Away From Homeschool

Yesterday I talked about redshirting and one of the articles that I read on the topic asked this question

1. First and foremost, you must answer this: If you hold your child back, what will he do during this time of rapid growth and learning? You cannot redshirt the brain. If not formal kindergarten, what do you intend to do for him that will inspire, excite, and motivate him during this time of rapid growth and learning?

 

That’s a great question. Since we have to hang out at SJ’s school all day long I want to do all I can to implement a homeschool curriculum of our own. I just so happen to be buddy buddy with some of what I consider to be the best homeschooling moms around. Naturally I hit up these resources for a little advice. I asked three different moms a series of homeschooling questions. They have 13 boys between them and each of them have been home schooled. First of all out of the three moms that I emailed none of them typed an answer back. They did even better, one wanted to answer my questions via phone conversation, another through Skype, and the other one is local so we talked in person. It just goes to show how the teacher in each of them that wanted to be thorough about helping me learn. Ah, I love it!
The exciting thing about Z’s age (5 1/2) and homeschooling is that it’s not about flash cards and drills, but rather fostering the curiosity that is already there and doing it in a relaxed way. Focusing on activities like cooking, gardening, or nature walks. Some of the best advice I’ve heard was to ‘Read, play, go places and talk the whole time you are doing it’. Read out loud while nursing the baby. Read the same book 5 times and talk about a different subject each day that you read it. Have books in the car for that hour long drive. Everyday you read to him and he reads to you. What was the underlying theme I was hearing over and over from multiple people? READ!
That’s what I’ve learned from the experts. Now all that’s left to do is implement it.  My plan is spend the 7 hours we have to kill each day by dividing it between games, puzzles, movies, books, quiet time, play dates, active playtime and there will even be a little bit of formal teaching thrown in there each day.
I’ve enjoyed this opportunity to learn about homeschool curriculums and ideas. Even though I plan on putting our children in public schools eventually, I hope that I will always have a hands on active roll in my children’s educations. I look forward to the days ahead with all there is to learn together and teach each other.
By |2015-05-25T23:17:18+00:00February 10, 2013|Schooling, Uncategorized|3 Comments

I Don’t Care What Color His Shirt Is

Will he be mature enough for kindergarten? Is it better to be the oldest or youngest? Will he be challenged enough? Is 17 too young to be thrown into to the “real world”? These are just some of the questions that rattle around in my head when I think of Z starting school. I’ve mentioned it on this blog three times already, but I’ll say it again. In Texas Z would have started Kindergarten next year and by Kentucky guidelines it should have been this year, but we held him back. He’s right on the bubble for the cut off date. Even though I know it is not true, I feel like the fate of his future rests on my decision. That’s a lot of pressure! I change my mind about this matter more than a driver with road rage changes lanes.

They actually call it “redshirting” when you hold your child back from starting kindergarten on time. I’ve recently read some articles about it and it can be pretty controversial. Some parents use it as a way to give their child an advantage in sports or an extra year of maturity for a competitive edge academically. Apparently I have become part of the 10% of American’s that are redshirting their children. We fit the statistic since it’s most commonly seen among white boys from the suburbs with late summer birthdays. J and I both have summer birthdays, but I went to Kindergarten twice so I know what it’s like to be the oldest in the class and J knows the feeling of being the youngest. There are some studies surfacing that show that it doesn’t help the student to have an extra year and in some cases may even hinder a student’s success. Then there is other evidence that supports the contrary.

I am not setting out to make my son an academic and certainly not athletic powerhouse by holding him back a year. Maybe if it were the Hunger games, but fortunately it’s not.  Waiting an extra year just happened to work out for our situation. I don’t care if his shirt is red, blue, or fuchsia (okay, maybe he would look a little weird in fuchsia). From what I’ve researched and what his teachers have told me Z is 100% ready for Kindergarten.
 
So for now we are working on retaining what he has learned and preventing boredom. I’ve gotten some helpful information from some of my homeschooling mom friends and I will share some of that in my next blog post. This whole ordeal is stretching me, but in a good way. To be continued…

By |2015-05-25T23:18:09+00:00February 8, 2013|Schooling, Uncategorized|4 Comments
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