Student
Success Stories
Joshua
| Leon
| Julie | Beth
Julie
Too Little Payoff for Hard Work
It
is hard not to smile when Julie smiles. Her contagious laugh
and charm are accurate representations of her personality; she is
a warm and irrepressible ten year old girl. No one is a stranger
to her for long. She initiates conversations with adults as
easily as with her peers. But two years ago, she did not appear
as confident as she does now.
Julie always seemed to have some difficulty in school. From Kindergarten
on, she was slow in completing her work and lagged behind her peers
in reading and spelling. She had difficulty remembering directions,
and her attention seemed to fade in and out during class activities.
Her parents had arranged tutoring for her during first grade. Now
in third grade, her self esteem was low - "broken," as
her mother described - and school was not getting easier. Homework
was now taking two hours each night, with help from an adult.
For several reasons, Julie is the type of student
who often slips through the cracks in education. First, girls
who struggle in school are far less likely to receive special assistance
or referrals for special education. In fact, girls suffer
from reading disabilities as often as boys, but are diagnosed only
one-third as often. Second, although Julie's difficulties
were significant, they were not severe enough to meet official criteria
for special services. The odds were against Julie ever receiving
the help she needed.
Fortunately, her parents were determined to find
help for their daughter, for the sake of her education and for the
sake of her emotional well-being. They sought out educational assessment
from a professional agency and searched for schools which gear their
programs toward bright students with learning difficulties.
During this process, they found The de Paul School.
The Sources of Difficulty are Identified
As part of the admissions procedure, de Paul's assessment team
used specific tests to determine whether de Paul was a good match
for Julie's needs. Through this battery of assessments, the
school was able to identify three key points regarding Julie:
1.
Julie was capable of learning. On the WISC-III
(Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Third Edition), which
was administered by outside sources, Julie achieved a full scale
score of 105, scoring slightly stronger in the performance section
than in verbal. de Paul's assessment of her capacity for learning
further revealed her knowledge of the world and potential to learn,
with scores in the average range (45th percentile). She certainly
was a bright child who wanted to learn.
2.
In spite of her capabilities, she was not learning certain
skills that would normally be expected of a child her age.
Julie's reading scores varied dramatically, depending on the aspect
of reading being tested. She was slow and labored in reading,
scoring in the 25th percentile for reading rate. Her ability to
accurately identify words was somewhat stronger, scoring in the
37th percentile. In spite of such labored reading, Julie was able
to answer comprehension questions with average success; she scored
in the 63rd percentile in reading comprehension.
The amount of effort and time required to read a passage was clearly
one source of Julie's frustration in completing class work and
homework, but it was also a source of emotional duress. Frequently,
children with reading difficulties feel defeated, inferior, or
unintelligent. Children who are slow or inaccurate in reading
can easily compare themselves to others by listening to their
peers read aloud in class. These children then devote a great
deal of energy and anxiety trying to avoid having to read in front
of others. Often, poor readers are constantly aware and ashamed
of their difficulties.
Julie experienced difficulty with spelling (21st percentile),
but wrote very expressively nonetheless. She was able to demonstrate
her strong ideas through well-crafted sentences.
Julie was learning adequately in mathematics, and scored above
average (73rd percentile) on de Paul's assessment tools. In spite
of her skills, however, her difficulty in organizing her written
work and in maintaining her attention made her math class work
and homework more difficult than it should have been.
3.
Julie's learning difficulties stemmed from perceptual
deficits - ways in which her brain processed information
differently from most children. Specifically, her severe difficulties
in phonological processing were impairing her ability to sound
out words when reading and spelling. In addition, her great difficulty
with visual-spatial organization resulted in copying difficulties,
slow and disorganized written work, and general disorganization
of materials. Her difficulty focusing and maintaining her attention
further compounded her problems. She was not always "tuned
in" to what was happening in class.
Hard Work Now Brings Progress
In de Paul's smaller-sized classes, Julie immediately
began to receive more specific attention than she had previously
received. Her self esteem began to improve as she worked with other
bright students who had similar difficulties. Her teachers note
that her confidence builds when she is able to maintain her attention.
The structure of de Paul's program - highly interactive instruction,
short activities, a familiar class routine, and clear directions
- are helping Julie learn to focus her attention and stay organized.
She is learning and remembering information more successfully, because
she is given ample opportunities to practice and apply her new skills.
She now completes her homework independently.
While receiving remediation for reading and writing,
she is able to continue her growth in math, science, and social
studies. In mathematics, Julie's computation and organization
of written work have improved. As a kinesthetic learner, she
is most successful when she can manipulate objects or act out situations
in order to learn new concepts.
de Paul's multisensory, structured language approach
to reading and spelling has helped Julie learn to read and spell.
Techniques which allow her to literally pull a word apart with her
hands and view it piece-by-piece have helped her to learn concepts
and skills of reading. Studying individual syllables within
words has greatly helped her reading and spelling. Julie has
also become more automatic in identifying and discriminating the
sounds of language, and this helps to speed up her rate of reading.
Her teachers are now seeing her apply her new reading skills outside
of her Language Arts class, in reading for other classes and for
pleasure. She will need continued work to fully master these
skills.
The student skills which de Paul teaches are
helping to prepare Julie for middle school expectations. Her
organization has improved, and she now completes her homework independently.
She is learning a style of note taking which helps her to organize
her thoughts and to study more easily. A key issue for her
will be learning to stay attentive with less teacher guidance.
The most visible change in Julie, however, is her confidence.
She takes more risks in those classes which are hard for her, and
does not hesitate to ask a question when she does not understand.
When
asked to summarize her experiences at de Paul, Julie says:
"Since
I came to de Paul, it has been a lot easier for me to learn to
read and write. It has been easier for me to ask questions
in class, and know I won't be embarrassed by asking them because
we all have basically the same problems with dyslexia and that
makes it easier for me. I get more attention and that helps
me learn. The students are nicer here, because we all struggle
with something and we all understand that about each other.
The teachers give me more attention."
Julie adds that her self confidence has risen,
both in and out of school. For example, she had initially
avoided joining a competitive swimming team, even though she showed
promise as a swimmer.
"I
didn't have any confidence. I thought everyone was better
than me. But when I started doing better in school, I was
more sure of myself. My sister wrote a nice poem to me,
encouraging me to join the team. I joined, and now I won
first place in the breast stroke!"
For Julie, dyslexia was excellence waiting to bloom.
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