Da's Conference.

We showed up at the school early. His teachers were still in a conference with the parents before us. So we killed some time and looked around at the pictures on the wall from Da's classroom. It sounds mean, but was very comforting that there were kids farther behind than Da. In the pictures, the kids were to write a simile. Da's Simile was that 'it was as hot as a volcano' and then he drew a picture of two people and a volcano. Some of the other kids similes were very hard to read and understand. One of the kids spelled school like "skoll". But it was comforting knowing that there are kids in his class at the same level as him and lower.
After a few moments, one of the Teachers that Da has to help with reading and writing came upstairs and waited outside with us. Sneezer brought her Micro with her and was trying to explain to this teacher how to play the Pokemon game. It was quite funny. She didn't even know what the 'A' and 'B' buttons were for. Then the parents before us came out of the room and we went in.
The reading and writing teacher went first. Well, she does more than that, but I just don't like calling her the 'special ed.' teacher. Even though that is what she is, I prefer not to call her that. Anyway, she was telling us how Da was doing well in reading, that he still is not at the level that he should be at right now, but he is really doing well. She says that he talks alot more when they are in smaller groups,( I think it is b/c he feels smarter than the others in the group, so therefore he talks more) and his classroom teachers were happy to hear that. She went on to talk about how well he was doing in math and that he definitely does not need tutoring in math. That was a good thing. She also said that he has figured out math problems in another way that the other kids did not. His classroom teacher told us about how she gave them a word problem and all the other kids were struggling and Da figured it out in a completely unique way. I wish I could have seen the problem and his work. Then we went on to talking about his choices in books. He has been checking out books that are far to advanced for him. The last book he checked out was "The great escape", which is a good book, but just to big for him. Now he is reading a book called " Nate the great", this is an easier book and a level 2. I think sometimes he feels that these books are for babies and that is why he doesn't like to read them, but I think that is we go and buy some of these books at Barnes & Noble, and we read them too, them maybe he will enjoy reading these books better. I think he wants to be like Sneezer and read chapter books like she is?
So all in all he is doing well. We still need to work on his hand writing and reading. But we will get there. Also we had asked since he is performing at a 2nd grade level and is in the 3rd grade, if we should start thinking about keeping him back a grade. His teacher said that holding kids back a grade only has a 15 % success rate. So we opted against that. We just need to work harder on these things now. I know he has it in him. He just needs to apply himself in other areas like he did with his math.