First day of school
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| Fri, 09-08-2006 - 12:08pm |
Well, the first day of school went as well as can be expected. I think DD15 is actually excited about several of her classes! Of course the first day wouldn't be complete about a late night run to the store for a critical supply! Despite two warnings/questions, DD was sure she wouldn't need a raquet ball raquet for the first day of gym (today), but of course the gym teacher came into homeroom on Th to say "I expect you to be prepared tomorrow" LOLOL good thing Sports Authority is open until 9:30 at night!
DD has an interesting schedule - two days a week she has a "free" first period that means she can sleep a little later! On Fridays she has three classes, then a "double lunch" (a free period right after lunch, then a double gym period, then a last period free. Not too shabby! long lunch, gym, then done for the day! It's a bit weird because their gym class is at the college they're affiliated with, about 30 city blocks from the HS. So if she wants to hang with her girlfriends after school on Friday (what they LOVE to do), she has to take the subway or bus uptown to school to meet them, then catch the subway downtown to go home. Sort of a pain. But she seems OK with it - I guess she'll figure it out!
How are other teens doing in these first days/weeks of school?
Sue

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I have not read that; thanks for the recommendation. What do you mean by visual-spatial? Ds16 will be getting tested this month, outside the school system, and I will know more then. But dd14 has poor delayed verbal memory and processing simple or routine visual material is also not good. I'm guessing this means she is NOT visual-spatial.
And yes, I know that some kids just don't test well - but the only time I like to see numbers go down like that is when we're talking about my weight!
I'm going to throw this out for what it's worth ... there is a woman who boards her horse at the same place we do and she and I occassionally ride together. She has two sons, in the late teens-early twenties age range. One of them had a very difficult time in school.
She had him tested in every way, shape and form possible and learned that he had a problem with 'auditory processing'. Sounds weird, I know, but apparently, humans need to be 'right ear dominant' in order to process and learn what they hear. Her son, it appears had two ears that heard equally, at the same time.
She perserved with this theory and was able to find a therapist to help correct it by, if you can believe this, playing classical music through headphones.
I know this sounds very strange, but when you think of 'right brain dominance' and all of that, it does make some sense.
This woman had to jump through hoops, found a advocate to petition the schools, doctors, etc. to recognize this as an actual LD and eventually her son got the help he needed. She claims it helped tremendously with his success at school.
Just one more thing to think about and possibility to consider.
My dd just started 10th grade and she seems to be okay so far. Her school is in a semester system meaning she only has 4 subjects and 4 periods per day. The classes are long and the homework can be quite lengthy because they only have half the year to cover the entire subject area but she's used to it now. She is in a dance program (its a school with an arts program) so she is quite excited about that. Only thing is they also have a mandatory requirement for gym so some afternoons when they aren't covering the health component of gym, she actually has her dance class followed by a gym class followed by her 15 minute walk home! So she has come home exhausted once or twice. Luckily due to the weird way its set up gym is only half the semester so she won't have to deal with this too long.
But, otherwise, she's got her friends and she's meeting some new ones and given its her second year at the school she's much more comfortable about the routine and the procedures and the people. So far....so good.
Yes, we are going to finally have him tested outside of the school system. It will cost us, but maybe we will get some results such as the ones your friend did. I wouldn't be surprised if he has some type of processing problem. Poor kid. All these years of struggling without the adequate help (just tutors, some of whom were actually impatient with him - I've found that people who are very good at math cannot comprehend those of us who struggle) have convinced him he is stupid and it's going to take a lot to convince him otherwise. He's also lazy, just like his dad, and that doesn't help b/c it's so much easier to give up and say, "this is just too hard for me" when you're lazy, too.
I just realized above I'm referring to ds16 and not dd14 - yes, they both have problems. I'm trying to focuse on one of them at a time - since they're needs are different. I already know that dd has visual memory problems but I have no idea how we can help those.
Sure would be neat if listening to classical music would clear that up too. I can just hear how my teens, lovers of "hard core" rock, would feel about that!
Recently ds is talking about "independent study" and that is a first for him. I think he's finally realizing that for him, school has too many distractions to actually do any learning! I feel so envious of you with kids who can focus with all the distractions in a classroom setting...
Start here.
http://gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm
Sue
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