It occurred to me that I have not given much history of how Jake got to this point so I think I will take the time to give his story.

(pre-school Age 18 months to 5)As a Mom I think I have always known that Jake may have some sort of issue. He was has always appeared to be a bright and curious child. Much to my chagrin, Jake (before the age of 5) would never sit to listen to a story. He liked to look at books and point at pictures, that sort of thing but would not sit still for a story. He was slow to talk coherently but his pre-school (a NJ state funded public pre-school) teachers all assured me he was fine he did not need speech. I now feel he may have benefitted from it. He had a sort of stammer. I was told to have him slow down and think about what he was trying to say, and this did help. (He has good diction today, but I still have him slow down when he tries to talk before his thought is coherent. I don't know if this is a part of his dyslexia or not.) He was very independent in his play but I would not call him un-social. He had a very friendly pre-k class and they were very huggy happy bunch. He had his first big crush on a girl, who he thought was beautiful. Very cute. It was also pointed out to me by his teacher that he had an awkward pencil grip. She was concerned that in K he would have to do a lot of writing and this would hurt his hand.

Kindergarten was good, he knew all his basics letters, numbers, shapes etc but was a little behind with small motor skills such as he could not tie shoes. Writing was average for K. This is when the daydreaming started to be noticed. He would space out a lot in class and had to be called back to the present by the teacher quite a bit. Again, I would say he was social, he liked his classmates but he never begged for play dates etc. He was comfortable to play by himself or with a friend but I usually initiated the date. He was (and still is) very imaginitive in his play. Loves to dress as characters, he will set up all his toys playing out great adventures etc. In Kindergarten he loved Pirates and Knights and his Imaginext toys were his favorite.

First Grade: In our school district they have a gifted and talented program. Students from kindergarten are recommended by their teachers and in combination with their Terra Nova scores are selected. Jake was selected and I was thrilled. Mostly because I felt my misgivings about his abilities must be wrong or he would have not been selected. The teacher dismissed parents out of the classroom the very first day. I had always been involved in Jakes classes before and I found this off putting but hey it was first grade I need to let go a little. I decided to just go with it and wait and see what would happen. At first progress report she requested a conference. Jake's reading was not where she would like it to be. So I explained about his daydreaming in K and his hand grip issue and she said he was still doing those things. She made some suggestions for things to try at home etc. As the year progressed his grades were not bad but she still called me in for conferences regarding his reading and now writing. My frustration with her was that any suggestions that I made for her to do in class with him were shot down. Which to me was 'he was going to learn her way in class and I had to make up the difference at home. This became a night time battle with homework and frustration for both Jake and I. By third marking period at our conference she said she "had no idea how he did it" but his grades were quite good. I has noticed an odd behavior with Jake. He was rolling his head back like he was trying to crack his neck. It started to appear that he was involuatarily doing it. His pediatrician referred me to a neurologist and we were awaiting a visit. I asked the teacher had she seen this behavior, and she said no. I asked her to please let me know if she saw it but to please not say anything to him about it, because he does not know he is doing it. Not 2 days later Jake burst into tear one afternoon at home after school. He said his teacher wanted to know what was wrong with him because he was rolling his head. He said " Mom, is there something wrong with me?" I was in shock. I could not believe she would blatantly break a confidence like this. I wrote her a scathing letter and she would not talk to me without bringing the principal and the nurse into a conference about it. So they lined up defended her good character and she blathered on about her sentivity and her special needs family members yadda yadda yadda.. I pointed out to her that I was sure she did not intentionally try to hurt Jake but she did. She did not do what I asked. It all fell on deaf ears. Which was basically her problem. All our conference were her talking and no real listening. The neurologist sent us for an eeg which was normal. We followed up with a visit in 6 months and most of the tic had diminished. I think it was a manifestation of his stress from reading now that I look back on it. I started chiropractor treatment and they seemed to help more than anything. Socially he made 2 best friends and was happy. There was a neighnorhood friendship I was wary about. This boy was very street wise and manipulative. Jake is very naive and easily hurt. So this was a hard friendship but was good in that I wanted him to learn that people can be hard. His favorite toys were bionicles and still imaginext nights and pirates etc. He played soccer and baseball and started swimming. Sports he is not very coordinated with but he wanted to play. He difinitely does not have a competetive sports side.

Second grade: Our first disappointment was the removal of a longtime favorite teacher from the Gifted and talented program. She was replaced with a very nice teacher and was very helpful and kind to Jake but as the year progressed he developed anxiety. His reading did not improve. His handwriting I felt got worse and he started to fail in math. I called around and found a small tutoring center that agreed to test him for me. If I went through the school then hisplace in the Gifted program would be lost. He was tested with standard woodcock johnson tests and the results and recommendation by the evaluator were that Jake had slow auditory processing, but was not dyslexic. She recommended Occupational Therapy for handwriting and a seat by the teacher. Then I made an appointment with his neurologist who tested him and said that he was dyslexic for phonics and math computation. Having the 2 different opinions made me even more confused. My gut feeling was that Jake did not learn well in the classroom setting and I started to think about homeschooling. It was April by this point I did not want to further upset him by changing classes or anything so his teacher agreed and we let him finish out the school year. I had a conference with the principal and she gave me the option of moving him in the Fall to a different district school where he could receive a remediation aide but be in a normal class. I started to look more and more into the aspect of homeschool. I just felt that an aide really was not the answer and perhaps one on one would work better for him. Assuming my husband would be hestitant I discussed it with him. He did a bit of research himself and felt if I wanted to do it I should try it. Pretty much that brings us to this blog start. In my research of homeschooling I got really excited to do it with all my kids but for now my 5 year old is going to kindergarten and is doing great. We will see how things go down the road:)!