He's doing it!!!

[Neverland Scraps]

My 7-year old hasn't had the best of luck with his schooling. In Kindergarten he had 5 teachers throughout the year as his original teacher broke her leg and hip on the second day of school knocking her out until the last month of school. Because of having so many substitute teachers, who were never trained in teaching/testing phonics, they didn't teach it to the students and only focused on math, which is my son's strongest subject.

Fast forward to 1st grade. New school at a new duty station, new teacher, in a class full of problematic children where my son was often allowed to watch youtube videos during school while the teacher helped the problematic students. In January he was placed in a new class, with a new teacher. She quickly discovered he wasn't on track with his reading/writing/spelling. I met with his teacher in February and she suspected a learning disorder, one that does run in the family which she didn't know until that parent meeting.

Then the virus hit, school closed, and digital learning happened. He wasn't able to get tested and would either have to repeat 1st grade if he couldn't close the gap of learning during this time, or get additional help in 2nd grade, if he did close that gap. They plan on testing him the first week of school to figure out what to do with him regarding a grade.

Knowing this, we leveled with him, telling him that we were going to work real hard throughout the rest of the year and in to the summer to make sure he went in to 2nd grade in the fall. I bought language, letters, reading and writing curriculum from ABeka, which is what I used to teach my daughters to read when I homeschooled them. We have been diligently working through the curriculum these past 8 weeks, working on his handwriting, his spelling, and his reading! It's been A LOT of work, some tears, but in the last few days, he's really started understanding phonics and reading!! While he still is sounding things out, he's able to read easier and with little help from us! I'm so proud of the work he's put in to his learning so that he hopefully doesn't have to repeat 1st grade!! He may still need additional help in 2nd, especially when they test him in the new school year, but I am confident they won't be holding him back now that he's closed this huge gap of learning.

This weekend I wanted to document him learning to read and the work he's put in these past few weeks. I couldn't find a beginner reader kit in the store, but I had remembered Kristin had a kit, Bibliophile. I figured I'd use to scrap his learning to read.


When I searched the store for that kit, guess what else showed up??
An addon to her Bibliophile for learning to read!!!



I purchased both of them, to be able to use them to their fullest and continue to document my son's reading, especially as he improves and becomes more confident with his reading. This week I scrapped this layout of him reading out of his Victory Drill book - - does anyone remember them as a child or when your kiddos were little?


**this layout uses a template, coming to the store tomorrow, from Cindy**

I'm so proud of this kiddo and I'm so excited that Kristin was thoughtful enough to create a beginning reader kit with her Bibliophile kit so that I could document this long road this boy has been on for almost two years! I also just had to brag on my kiddo because I know school is hard for him and he is often in the shadows on my layouts as he hates having his photo taken