UPDATE: Since we last spoke, dh and I have have seen a counselor for help with parenting issues. The counselor suggested a sensory evaluation since many of dd's issues seemed sensory related. I took dd for a sensory evaluation and they actually tested her fine and gross motor skills. They explained that insurance won't cover just sensory issues, it has to be causing problems in other domains. As I expected, dd does not have any fine or gross motor delays, so she does not qualify for therapy. The OT evaluator suggested testing for ADHD. I may wait until school begins to do this since the evaluation would be free through the school district. Does anyone familiar with the process know how they evaluate a child? Is it just a checklist that parents and teachers fill out or do they observe and/or interview the child?

We have begun AAS 1 to work on her spelling, but nothing else. Do you have any programs that you like for grammer, vocabulary, and/or concept building. We do have a kindle fire. How do you access the immersion reading? Is it an app?

My dd is a rising 2nd grader. I taught her to read using 100EZ lessons. I also have a younger DD who is 4 that I will probably use OPGTTR with. My question is what now for my older DD? She is reading at a DRA level 30. Is there anything else I need to be doing besides giving her the opportuntity to read and having her read out loud to me. Is there another "reading program" she can work through at this point?

Can you give me an example of quiet play things your children are doing while you read aloud? I think I have the unreasonable expectation of kids siting criss cross apple sauce with eyes on me while I read. When they don't do this, I figure that they are not old enough for read alouds and then just avoid doing it at all.

She is just spelling phonetically without being taught how to spell.

I'm interested in using a spelling program with DD (7) over the summer. She is reading at a DRA level 30 but her spelling lags behind. For example, here are some words followed by how DD spells them: Easter-Ester jumped-jumpt burning-brning Shine-sine Earth-Erth I have been leaning towards AAS. I'm looking for a mostly open and go (although I don't mind some intitial set up) program that explains the whys of spelling. I'm a literate adult but I could not have told you that the "e" in came makes the vowel say it's name until I began teaching DD to read. I afterschool so we have not used a ton of curriculum but if it helps, I've really liked Math Mammoth. We also used 100 E-Z lessons. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either. We got through it and when we did, DD was reading as promised.

Thank you for the reply. Yes, it is sad that the pedi just brushed it off and told her she needs to wear socks. I actually picked this pedi specifically because she minored in pyschology and she has been a pedi for a number of years. Then again, I blame myself for not pushing the issue. I probably wasn't conveying that it was a big issue and she took it as toddler stubborness. I was reading another thread where someone's family was like "see, I told you nothing is wrong" and I feel like that too. DH is just now getting to the point where he is like, "She's a normal kid,....right?" Before now, I'm pretty sure he thought I have whatever disorder it is where you make up things that are wrong (in relation to our DD).

When we were having troubles back in preschool, my DD's pedi referred us to a counsler. We never ended up going, but we are having issues again and I wonder if that is where we should start. The counsler is a LCSW and LMFT. Now for the background: DD started out being cared for by a retired grandma who was also staying with her grandchild. DD cried a lot and Grandma would tell us she sometimes had to leave the room because she could not get her to stop crying. At home, she had to be interacted with constantly. She didn't care too much for toys unless she was playing with us. We noticed DD's eye was turning in and took her to an opthamologist. She had strabismus surgery at 16 months. She began patching and started wearing glasses at about a year and a half. We moved her to an in home daycare that a former lead teacher at a daycare center began. This woman said that when DD got upset, she just could not calm her down. We called early intervention for an evaluation. DD scored within normal range but was borderline for hearing. Early Intervention suggested we not jump in so quickly to help her when she was frustrated but could not help us with services as DD did not qualify. About 6 months later, DD moved to a childcare center on-site at my work. The 2 year old teacher asked one of the assistant director to come observe DD, but the Assistant Director felt her behavior was within normal and that she might have been going through a growth spurt. DD went through the next two classrooms with little incident. In fact, we received comments on how affectionate she was and how smart she was. She has some minor sensory issues. She didn't want to wear socks or jeans. I mentioned it to pedi but she said to just tell her she had to wear socks. In the 5 year old class, thing really came to a head when she crumpled some papers and threw them on the floor (she was frustarted a drawing was not going the way she wanted imagined it). The teacher told her that her behavior was unacceptable and DD bit the teacher and then tried to throw the chair at her. They suspended her for the day but we withdrew her from the school shortly after. This is when we went to see the pedi and she referred us to the counsler. We changed preschools to a more academic preschool (where some kids, including DD were already reading). She did wonderfully and we had no issues. In kindergarten, her teacher said she was doing great and only sometimes struggled with pefectionism. She was tested for entrance into the gifted program. She did really well on the achievement test (ITBS) but did poorly on the CogAT. Her ITBS was above 99% in reading and 86% in Math. I don't have her CogAt scores here to report them but obviously they were poor enough to keep her from getting into the gifted program. She had a second strabismus surgery in kindergarten. She also had numerous strep throat infections. In first grade, she continued to do well academically. Her teacher ended up quitting in December but before she left, she wanted to have DD test for the gifted program. I explained that DD tested last year and did not qualify, but she wanted to test her again. It never happened though, because that teacher left. DD often complained to her new teacher that she was tired and slumped down on her desk. On the other hand, she sometimes would be overly excited and unable to sit still. I told the teacher I would not object if she wanted to have the counsler or school psychologist speak to DD. Her teacher didn't think that was needed. She said she thought DD might be bored and she would try to challenge her more. She ended up having her tonsils and adenoids out and having tubes put in her ears. DD often speaks in low mumbles (we are constantly having to ask her to speak up). She is very sensitive and has low frustration tolerance. This morning, she felt her 3 year old sister laughed at her, so she bit her finger and generally pouted all the way to school. I just don't know what to do anymore. I have a child who performs above grade level but is not gifted. She has had some minor medical issues, which we have quickly addressed. The comment I get most often is that she is a sweet girl but she can be so negative and pouty. The academic work she can do (1-3 grades ahead) does not match her emotional capability (which seems to be 2-3 years behind). I feel like no one wants to help or even acknowledge there is a problem because she is not behind academically. Where do I start? Should I keep our appointment with the counsler or go somewhere else? We don't have a ton of money to spend on getting her evaluated (and I'm not even sure what we are evaluating her for or where to go for that). Any suggestions would be appreciated.

We choose to send our daughter to a dual language magnet school (there are no immersion schools in the area). Science and Social Studies are taught is Spanish. We were warned that for the first few years, students in the dual language program would be behind their monolingual peers, after which they would catch up. I have no monolingual program to compare it with, but I feel like math is not focused on enough. Subjects are touched upon, but not mastered. I afterschool to give her a solid foundation in math and to keep her on track with her monolingual peers in terms of reading and writing. I will add a spelling program this summer because she is reading at about a third grade level but still spelling like a first grader or below. Spelling was not taught in K or 1st here. It's basically to cover the gaps in her education.

My daughter is in first as well and we got back some math papers which had all been checked at the top (meaning it had been looked over). DD repeatedly was not correctly writing numbers in expanded form. For example, it would ask her to write 57 in expanded form and she would write 5+7 instead of 50+7. She made the error a number of times and none were corrected. I brought it to the teacher's attention by saying that I was concerned that she was struggling with a concept, rather than the teacher was not checking her work carefully enough. It still accomplished what I needed it to because now I see where mistakes are circled on my daughters work. I think sometimes teachers get in to the habit of not worrying about kids who are working at or beyond grade level.

My daughter struggled with perfectionism in writing and drawing both in preschool in kindergarten. I think the most important thing is your reaction to the frustration. We would label the emotion for her but not get upset ourselves . "You seem frustrated. Let's put this away for awhile and come back to it later." We had a preschool teacher who treated her frustration as a discipline issue because dd would scrunch up her work and/or toss it on the floor. The teacher would get upset and get in dd's space about not tolerating that kind of behavior. Guess how well that went over? Anyway, now in first grade, dd has outgrown her perfectionism and is all too happy (maybe more than she should be) to turn in work that is "good enough".

My oldest is 7, so take my opinion for what it is worth but...I've always been drawn to schools who employ the harkness table. Again, I don't have any personal experience with a school or a community that utilizes it but I really like the idea. You hear ideas from other minds. If you're shy, you learn to speak up for yourself and that it is okay to have an opinion, even if it's different from others. If you're outgoing, you learn to respect others right to disagree and how to disagree without being disagreeable. For me, discussion seems like a key component of the rhetoric stage. However, 7th grade isn't there yet so you still have another year if you would rather not do group discussions.

I've seen several posts where people mention their son or daughter having vision therapy. Can anyone share what it is like and whether they believed it has helped. My DD7 has had two strabismus surgerys but her eyes still will cross within a minute of taking off her glasses. Her pedi opthamologist doesn't think vision therapy helps and says most times it is not covered by insurance. Thoughts?

I'm an afterschooler with two daughters. DD7 is in 1st grade and DD3almost4 goes to pre-K.