I receive calls like this everyday. A mother contacts me. She’s been referred by the teacher, the school advisor, the principal or a friend….I am told that I am the last resort. The family has done everything right. They have put the child through expensive assessments, child has had extra lessons at school with a special ed. teacher, parents have taken direction from teachers, seen more mainstream specialists. They have carried the assessment from specialist to specialist holding the envelope out as an introduction to who the student is. …
Isaac’s mother called: “Would you like me to bring the assessment that was done last year for Isaac. The Assessor wrote that he would not be able to go further than third grade reading. He is now at the age of wanting to get a driving license but he will not be able to because he cannot read, and now more than ever he wants to learn.”
“NO! NO! I don’t want to read a static assessment and I don’t want to hear that sentence that he won’t be able to go further than third grade reading”. I answered.
Intuitively, I had blurted out ‘static assessment’. But suddenly realized that that is exactly what it is. Assessments are done and they are so expensive. They are usually done only once or twice in the life of the student. This piece of paper continues with the child throughout the years of learning without being upgraded. Do we stay the same? Do we not improve? What is the aim of this assessment? People that assess do not always know how to teach and not all teachers know what to do with the concepts that are written in assessments.
They are usually given recommendations in broad terms and the teacher has to take the initiative to help student as best as she can. And usually this is what she has done before the assessment anyway.
His mother wanted to know if I was willing to teach him.
“Only on one condition.” I said, “If he wants to make the effort to truly learn for himself. I cannot believe that he is 15 years old and has no reading skills.I would certainly like the challenge of teaching him, but only if HE wants to put his energies into it.”
The following week I received a call saying that Isaac really wants to learn to read and when can he come. I had an opening that very day and so we met for the first time.
A very quiet, good looking, stocky blond fellow came into the room. I could sense his insecurity by the way he did not look me in the eye. He is a very left dominant brained student, meaning that he is one for details. His favorite hobby is building model aeroplanes. He sees the picture and then starts gluing one piece at a time…
So how does that relate to reading?
In reading he sees each letter separately and not part of the word and then each word he sees apart and not part of a sentence. There is no way he can comprehend what he reads and so there is no real reading.
But, I ask myself why the assessor cannot see that he will be able to read as he has all the parts…he now has to just build the whole!
I do admit that I was a bit disappointed, I thought I would have the challenge of teaching him to read but the challenge now is how to build an aeroplane from the parts, or how to
read sentences from the words or how to read words from the letters.