Progress

We had our last assesment on January 9. After the past three showing minimal progress, we finally saw a big jump. It was so satisfying to see!! We now have more difficult exercises but I am happy to see them.
Her reading keeps coming along. When she reads aloud to me I am pleased with her steady progress. She continues to get good grades each week in her spelling and language tests. However, she continues to have little understanding of math. She just does not see it. Also, her frustration level is still very high with her homework.
Socially, she has some very sweet friends and is quite busy with them. She sometimes sees herself as left out and as a victim at times, which may just be part of her personality.
We have also noticed that she is not quite as clumbsy anymore.

Jan. 1. 2008

It has now been 9 months since we began the Dore Program. The biggest testiment to her progress came late in September. We had a 'student support meeting' at school. It was a follow up from the meetings we had last year and was designed to find out just how far behind she was and how much she was struggling and whether or not she qualified for the 'alpha phonics' dyslexic program. Mrs. T., her teacher this year, was astounded to hear the report read from last year. She said she could not believe the child in the report and Paige were the same child!! As she put it, Paige is 'holding her own' in second grade.

I am thrilled with this but still tend to notice where she still struggles. I see that any work she brings home as homework like spelling words, worksheets or grammer, that we work on with her, she learns fine. She usually gets an 'A' on things she is tested on, that she brings home. Where she is falling down is on things they work on in class only. She seems to miss some of the instruction or even get it down wrong. Math is an area where this is happening. She will begin small group help once school begins after this holiday time. I think that will help her a lot.

I do see that she still struggles with attention and focus. She is reading much better but still has an issue with fluency. I see her skipping words or endings of words. We have seen a developmental optometrist and she has special glasses that should help with her reading. He says she has an eye that sways outward and that her eyes quiver when focusing up close.

Our next Dore assesment is next week. Oh, and Paige was featured on a local Fox News story about the Dore program!!

Well we are one week away from being on Dore for 6 months. After noticing lots of little changes early on, and the flowery feedback from Mrs. S., her teacher after just 8 weeks on the program and a time of regression, we went a long time with no noticable changes. We were to have had her assesment 3 days ago but she got sick with strep and we had to reschedule. I was looking forward to finding out anything I could from the assesment but am happy that it is in two weeks now. More time for changes. I am at this time, suspecting she has had some positive things going on in that little cerebellum. There are more expectations at school this year and she is doing fine with it, suprisingly. This is the first year she gets grades. All of them have been very good so far. She has to study hard for those 20 spelling words but the fact that she is getting them correct is pleasantly surprising me. She has gotten a 100% and a 95%. She also does not seem as overwhelmed as I would have expected her to feel. She still has a long way to go, but I am very happy so far!

I suspected that Paige's 'resgression period' was past and I was told that indeed, I was correct. Her last assesment was yesterday. Friday July 27th. Here are her scores:

Fourth Assesment Scores:

1. 76 baseline
2. 75 somatasensory 97(goal)
4. 62 visual 82
5 44 vestibular 58

Our last assesment was Tuesday, June 19. She has continued with the regression, which I find not all that exciting to report. But restructuring is part of the process as it is in any situation that you reorganize. I try to remember that when we clean out the garage, things look worse before they look better....and in the big scheme of things, it is positive to be in this process of restructuring.

Here is where I wil be posting all of her scores. I will begin with the earliest and move to the latest.

Initial Assesment on March 21, 2007

Equilibrium Score
1. 90 green
2. 76 red
4. 77 green
5.38 red

Somatasensory 84 red
Visual 86 green
Vestibular 42 red
Composite 64 red


Second Assesment May 5, 2007
Equilibrium Score
1. 74 red
2. 48 red
4. 65 red
5. 25 red

Somatasensory 65 red
Visual 86 green
Vestibular 32 red
Composite 48 red


Third Assesment June 19, 2007

Equilibrium Score

1. 86 red
2. 57 red
4. 60 red
5. 33 red

Somatasensory 66 red
Visual 70 red
Vestibular 37 red
Composite 52 red

Bumps in the Road

Paige has now been doing Dore for 12 weeks. When we were at our last assesment 6 weeks ago, Sara, program specialist, warned me that sometime in the near future Paige may get grumpy and irratable and it may last a week or two. I had felt we had breezed through this because we had not noticed any change in her behavior other than her acting very babyish for awhile in there. That is also normal as the brain reorganizes itself....the person goes through periods of regression. The regression seems to be over but we are now noticing a very stubborn girl, and a grumpy, irratable girl!
I guess I am glad we are getting proof of progress and going through all of the normal phases.
We go for her next assesment on Tuesday.

May 26, 2007

School ended two days ago. 9 weeks into Dore. I continue to be amazed at the changes she has shown. At home, it is somewhat hard to tell. You notice things and then wonder if you are being wishful. But last Friday, 8 weeks into Dore, Paige's teacher, Mrs, Schubert, stopped me at school and went on and on about the changes she has noticed over the past month. She says that across the board, she has noticed improvments. Reading is better, math is better, writing is better and much better concentration.

I too have noticed the reading. She reads to me every night. I still have to use my finger to keep her place or she jumps around, skips words and even add words. But the level of difficulty she can handle has jumped and forever she seemed to be just plugging along not making much progress. I noticed that homework was not such an issue and she got it done with much less complaining and better focus.

A friend of mine was in the hall outside of our classroom one day when the math tutor returned the kids that are taken out for help....Paige being one of them. The tutor spoke to the teacher saying "Paige is really catching on, really flying through these last few weeks!"

The biggest change her teacher noticed was the focus....which had been her biggest problem. Her comment was that she had blown away by the amount of time Paige was focusing on her work, finishing projects she never would have been able to handle a couple of months ago. She is no longer so frustrated having melt downs and crumbling feeling the pressure is too great. Mrs. Schubert said, "I don't know if it is those exercises you are doing with her or something you are feeding her, but she is a different child!"