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Helicopter Mom has taken wing to other endeavors. Her story, and that of her amazing young son, will be a book. We will let you know when we hear more details about it. Their astonishing saga of what it took for one young American child to learn how to read ended this year when her young son was recognized by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth as being one of the smartest kids in the country, scoring in the 92 percentile on the verbal section of the SCAT, an exam that identifies children as verbally gifted if they score in the 50th percentile or higher.

Clearly, this is a boy who is verbally gifted.

Clearly, this is a boy who should not have had a problem learning how to read.

Clearly, the problem lay in the reading curriculum and not in the child.

Clearly, theirs is a story that must be told and we are proud to have told it here first.

(Feb. 24, 2009) Talks about how one man went from being a parent to a public school reformer and why. Explains a lot about what’s wrong with the reading and math curriculums in many public schools and how those problems came to be. http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/14814/A_School_Reformers_Journey_From_Parent_to_Journalist_to_Policy_Analyst.html

(Feb. 6, 2009) Hi everyone. Sorry I haven’t written in a while. Have been too busy living a happy and productive life. Writing this blog helped see me through one of the darkest periods in my life. It’s over now. :)

It’s amazing how many people keep visiting this site even though I, myself, haven’t logged on here in months. I hope you are finding what you read here helpful. I, myself, wouldn’t want to live through it again.

Update: I know I promised you that I would tell Younger Son’s story and I am, but not here. My next book will be on what he experienced. Publisher would not be happy if the whole story was already available on line. Stay tuned for publishing details. What you do need to know is that Younger Son now absolutely adores reading. He zipped through all the Harry Potter books in the first few months of this school year and has just finished the Rick Riordan series. He is an excellent and voracious reader who, according to his teacher, was one of the kids who got the highest grade in his class on the first computerized practice test the kids took for this year’s ELA. So even though he started out way behind most of the kids in his grade, he certainly caught up! All turned out well for him and for me. I now have a thriving, joyful business helping other kids learn to read.

As for Older Son, he is maintaining a 93+ average in his first choice Specialized High School without even breaking a sweat. He loves his school and is thriving, both socially and academically. Part of the reason he is doing so well is because of the rigorous training he got at NEST+m. Would we do it all over again? Moms ask me that all the time as middle school choice year approaches. You’ll have to stay tuned for that answer. Right now, I honestly don’t know the answer.

Okay. Done. Finished talking about my kids, at least in an academic way. But I do want to, every so often, share my thoughts on school and life with you. For example, the other day I got an email urging me to speak out at a panel for mayoral control of the schools. I deleted it. I will no longer waste my energy on trying to change the school system. Doesn’t matter what our mayor does because I will make sure my kids get what they need at home because that’s what every other clued in parent is doing. That’s the big elephant in the room that, for some reason, no one is willing to talk about.

Why not?

(Oct. 21, 2008) Wow! I can’t believe it’s been six months since I last posted. I hope you are all doing well. Thank you to those of you who have emailed asking if I am ever going to update the blog. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact that I feel the story of what would have happened to Younger Son had I left him up to the school system is a story that MUST be told—not for his sake, since he is now a bright and shining star in school, but for the sake of the millions of other children who have, or are, experiencing what he experienced—I wouldn’t be sitting in front of the computer right now.

When you write about something that happened to you, you re-experience it. What happened to my Younger Son (and to me in my attempt to understand why he wasn’t reading and to correct it) was very painful. And anxiety-producing. I don’t want to re-experience that pain and anxiety since things in our lives are just fine now.

But I am going to re-experience it.

As I type this, my heart is pounding.

I feel like I am about to step from a bright and sunny day into a morass of darkness and fear.

Fear fueled my every thought and action during my son’s First Grade year.

I was so scared that something might be wrong with my wonderful little boy.

Something wrong? you ask.

By February of 2007, Younger Son was reading so well at home that I should have had nothing to be afraid of anymore, right?

Wrong.

The better he read at home, and the more I communicated to the school that they should be doing things differently, the more the school stepped up its campaign to evaluate my son.

In the end, my husband and I agreed to let the school evaluate him.

The evaluation was a terrible, grueling, frightening process.

I think you have to be a strong person—much stronger than I am—to be able to hold onto your certainty that all is well with your child when your little boy is being observed and scrutinized by a gaggle of people and undergoing test after test after test.

The school was so sure something was wrong, that even I began wondering if they were right.

The smallest slip-up on his part, a single reversed letter (which is absolutely nothing to worry about before the age of 8 by the way) caused panic.

Given how well Younger Son was reading in February, we should have been on our way out of the darkness. Instead, things got darker and darker and scarier and scarier.

Hold on for the ride…

(Feb. 1, 2007) Younger Son is going to sleep. As I tuck him in, he says, “When I officially become a purple stick dot I won’t need to go to Reading Specialist anymore.”

His words surprise me.

I didn’t think that working with Reading Specialist bothered him.

I don’t know what to say. The reading specialist is the only one in the school who is doing systematic phonics with him. I would like that work to continue, but I don’t want him to be upset about it. I am steering much of what the reading specialist is doing, anyway. (Remember how she told me to throw out the sight words she gave him and use the ones I had given him at home?)

Since I don’t know what to say, I say, “I don’t know. We’ll see.”

Younger Son throws off his blanket and sits up. “You mean I might have to go to her for as long as I’m in that school?” He is, clearly, upset.

“No,” I say. “But it may be a good idea to go next year.”

“Why?”

Why.

He has no idea what a big question he has asked. The “why” behind why he is seeing the reading specialist is something I don’t want to go into with him. Not at the fragile age of 6. He has no idea that his school thinks there is something wrong with him. I have told him what I believe is the honest to God truth—he is seeing the reading specialist because the other parents of kids in his class taught their kids how to read when they were in kindergarten and I did not teach him. The other parents did not leave their children’s reading up to the school. Only I and a few other parents (whose kids are now also behind the class curve) were naive enough to do so.

“Because she does phonics with you,” I say. “Phonics is important.”

“You can do phonics with me,” he says.

He is right and so I say, “If you want to stop when you’re a purple stick dot, we’ll look into you stopping.”

That makes his happy and he settles down to sleep.

His reaction has introduced a new issue into this reading equation—the fact that most kids hate being pulled out of the classroom to work with a specialist. I don’t think my son sees it as a stigma—not yet, anyway. I think he just doesn’t want to miss fun stuff in the classroom, like writing workshop (which he enjoys) and activity time, which he adores.

Like everything else in parenting, I realize that this reading equation will become even more of a balancing act.

I need to get (or give) Younger Son what he needs, yet I need to continue to ensure his well being and happiness.

(Feb. 1, 2007) At bedtime, Younger Son and I are looking through the books on our bookcase, looking for a nice story for me to read to him. I leaf through a Biscuit book and realize Younger Son would now be able to read it with no problem. (His kindergarten teacher had said he could read them last summer but there was no way he could. That was back when he had memorized every book in his book basket and had fooled his kindergarten teacher into thinking he could read when, really, he couldn’t.)

As I look through a few other Biscuit books, Younger Son takes a Little Critter book off the shelf. “Hey!” he cries, very excited. “I can read this!”

He pulls another Little Critter book off the shelf (We have lot of them.) “I can read this too!” he cries.

He grabs another one, looks through it and cries, “I can read all of these, Mommy! Let’s make a pile of them! Let’s make a pile of all the books I can read!”

As I make a Biscuit pile and he makes a Little Critter pile, he is proud and I am delighted.

His joyous proclamation “Hey! I can read these!” keeps sounding in my ears.

I had thought it would be a long time before I would hear him shout those words with glee. It was nice to hear them tonight.

Today was, indeed, a very, very special day.

(April 11, 2008) Barack Obama has said that he would not be where he is today if it wasn’t for his mother. That’s because she took charge of his schooling, just like I did with my kids. Just like so many other parents—including you—are doing with theirs.

Obama has credited his mother with giving him a great education. When he was a little boy living in Indonesia, his mother would wake him up at 4 am so that he could take correspondence courses in English before going to school. “When he balked at her early-morning home schooling, she retorted, `This is no picnic for me either, buster,” a New York Times article about his mother reported.

She taught him at home, just like we are teaching our kids even though they are enrolled in school.

Some of the parents who send their kids to me for tutoring say that their kids refuse to work with them at home. They balk, just like Obama did. Just like my kids initially did.

My advice? Don’t give them a choice. Tell them that they need to do 15 minutes of work with you, and then they can go and do whatever it is they want to do. They’ll moan at first but, just as with anything else, if you stand firm, they will eventually accept that this is what they need to do. Trust me. That little bit of extra work will go a long way.

It did for my younger son. I am doing some third grade test prep work with some of my young clients this summer. To prepare for working with them, I have printed out copies of the standardized tests administered in the past few years. Out of curiosity, I had Younger Son take the first part of the 2007 third grade state math test and the 2006 English state test. Remember, he is now in second grade so he still has one more year to prepare for these tests. Even though he took the tests as a second grader, he got 100 PERCENT on the math test and just one wrong on the English test.

I felt relief course through my body when I saw those grades. I don’t have to worry about his academic performance anymore.

But, remember, my son would have been doomed if I had allowed his school to continue to try to teach him how to read. Remember, his inability to learn to read within his school’s Mickey Mouse (otherwise known as Balanced LIteracy) curriculum affected everything else in first grade. It caused him to tune out to other subjects too during that horrible year.

Now, he is totally tuned in. He is learning so much from his fabulous second grade teacher that I am astonished. He is now a boy who one day, too, could grow up to be president, given his drive, determination and extraverted personality.

But I don’t care what he does when he grows up. All I care about is the fact that, now, he is extraordinarily happy and flourishing in school.

Even though he is learning a lot in school now, I continue to give him 15 minutes of math to do at home every day. Yesterday, one of the math problems I gave him involved looking at a chart and answering a question that said, “What pattern do you see?”

My little wise guy wrote, “I don’t care.”

I laughed and said, “You don’t have to care. You just have to know how to answer the question.”

He answered the question. Then we went out and got ice cream from the ice cream truck, checked out the ASPCA event at Union Square Park, met up with Husband and dog, took a walk around Gramercy Park and visited Petco to buy crickets to feed our frog. When we got home, Younger Son said, “Tonight was so much fun.”

“Tonight” included 15 minutes of math and it was still considered fun. Life and school work can be balanced and fun.

Never, ever, underestimate the influence you have over your children’s present and future.

And never let them whine their way out of doing a little bit of extra work with you.

Remember, you are the parent.

You are in charge.

You are the one who will make the difference.     

(Feb. 1, 2007) Younger Son has finished all his homework, except for reading out loud. Now, he pulls out the three books that his classroom teacher sent home for him to read. Older Son usually frowns at the books Younger Son brings home from school because they are so boring. Tonight, however, he picks up one of them and says to Younger Son, “Hey. This looks good.”

The book is called “Footprints in the Snow” and, based on the picture on the cover, looks like it is a nice story about a wolf.

Older Son quickly glances through the book and his interest turns to disappointment. “What kind of a book is this?” he asks. He throws the book down on the couch in disgust.

Younger Son picks up the book and reads it. This is the scintilating story line, the kind that proponents of Whole Language (who say that phonics are boring and will turn kids off to reading) say will spark a child’s love of reading:

Someone hops home. (Turn the page.)

Someone swims home. (Turn the page.)

Someone walks home. (Turn the page.)

A good book to read if you are learning to read the words “someone” or “home,” neither of which Younger Son is learning at the moment.

Not a good book if you want a good story.

If you remember, I had asked the teacher for books that would enable Younger Son to practice the “ch” “sh” and “th” sounds. Those books never came home. Instead, we keep getting useless ones like “Footprints in the Snow.”

Even worse is the second book, “Bubble Trouble.”

The name alone is impossible for a beginning reader to read.

The story begins: “I make bubbles in the air. I make bubbles in my hair. I make bubbles big and round and listen for the popping sound.”

What’s up with the “ou” words? My kid is still working on mastering long vowels and digraphs. How could he possibly read “trouble” and “round” and “sound?”

He can’t.

That is why he didn’t learn to read in school.

No mystery there.

The mystery lies in why these kinds of book continue to be given to beginning readers.

The mystery lies in why so many beginning readers continue to not be taught how to read in school.

(Feb. 1, 2007) We celebrate with hot chocolate at home. Afterwards, Younger Son heads into the bathroom to poop. He takes the Little Bear book into the bathroom with him and reads it outloud as he sits on the toilet.

He reads the whole book outloud to himself.

The WHOLE BOOK.

I say nothing as I listen to him read from the next room.

I don’t want to make him self conscious and I want him to keep on reading.

I am so happy.

It is such a big moment that, as he nears the end of the book, I take pictures to remember it by. It is a big moment because:

#1: He is reading a book that, just a few months ago, would have seemed impossible for him to read.

#2: He picked up the book all by himself, with no prompting from me. That means…

#3. He is motivated to read. That means he will now apply his iron will and determination to reading. That means there will be no stopping him.

Here is a photo from that day that I can share with you without impinging on his privacy:

(Photo coming soon!)

(Feb. 1, 2007) Younger Son gets off the school bus, smiling. “Can we celebrate?” he asks. “Can we go for hot chocolate?”

The other week, I took him and Older Son out for hot chocolate after school to celebrate when Younger Son moved up to the next reading level. I assume his request for another celebration means he has, once again, moved up another reading level but I play dumb. “What are we celebrating?” I ask.

He pulls the Little Bear book out of his knapsack and holds it up proudly. “Purple stick dot!” he announces.

“Wow!” I say.

He tells me the assistant principal had him read the book to her. She told him he did great and then took him to one of the first grade teachers and asked what level stick dot Little Bear would be. (If you remember, at Younger Son’ s school reading levels are identified by different-colored round stick dots that are placed on the back of all the books within that particular level.)

“Purple,” the first grade teacher had replied.

Purple is a high reading level for a first grade reader. That is where the school wants all its first graders to be when they finish first grade and it is only February.

That means Younger Son is already ahead of grade level.

Maybe now the school will believe me when I tell them my son can read?

(Feb. 1, 2007) I am home from the meeting with the assistant principal. All I can do now is wait and see what will happen next. I had asked the assistant principal to please find books with digraphs in them for my son to read. Digraphs are the letter combintations “ch,” “sh,” “th,” and “wh.” That is what I am teaching him now and he should be able to practice those sounds by reading stories that use them. I also told the assistant principal that if she continues having Younger Son read Whole Language books she will be wasting both her time and my son’s time.

My son does not have time to waste.

He needs to learn how to read well and he needs to learn fast.

The assistant principal said she will see what she can do about getting him books that contain digraphs. She said she takes her cues from the reading specialist but that she will do her own research into it. I asked her to at least cover up the pictures when she has Younger Son read to her. She nodded but didn’t actually say she would do this. Now I can only hope that she does.

Now I can only wait and wonder and worry about what will happen next.

The waiting is very difficult.

I feel like I am in a doctor’s waiting room waiting for a prognosis for my son’s future.

I am waiting for my son’s school to tell me he is O.K.

Only then will I believe it.

(Feb. 29, 2008) I wrote the above paragraphs from notes I made a little more than one year ago. Now, one year later, I am embarrased to admit that I did not trust my own knowledge, observations and instincts when it came to my own child and his abilities. Before I could believe my son was O.K., I needed to have his school tell me he was O.K. I needed to have my own instincts and knowledge ratified by school authorities. Now, one year later, I wish I had believed in myself more. I wish I had had the strength to spare my son a grueling evaluation that ended up finding absolutely nothing wrong with him and that, once it showed he had a high IQ and was either “superior” or “above average” in all the abilities that contribute to reading success, served only to prove that the problem lay with the school and not with him.

That is why, now that I am teaching kids how to read for a living, I am so impressed with the mothers who have the strength to blow off their childrens’ teachers when the teachers recommend having the kids be evaluated for learning issues because the kids have not yet learned how to read.

There are a lot of strong mothers out there who do trust themselves and who know that the only problem their kids have is that they are in schools (both public and private by the way) that are not teaching them how to read.

My heart goes out to them and my hat goes off to them.

You mothers should be proud of yourselves.

Every day, I wonder how I can reach more mothers who are in the same situation and are not as strong, or as knowledgeable.

The other day I offered to speak at an upcoming national conference of reading researchers and tell them my son’s story. “I have heard your son’s story from thousands of other parents,” said the man organizing the conference. “That is why I now run a multi-million dollar business.” (His company goes in and “fixes” the reading curriculums of failing schools in Pennsylvania.)

So the biggest reading experts in the country have heard my son’s story thousands of times before.

They know all about how many kids are not being taught how to read.

They have spent decades trying to fix the problem and still the problem continues.

The way to really make a difference—and to save so many more kids from a life of mislabeling and diminished expectations and achievement—is to reach more parents and have them realize how terribly reading is being taught in so many schools in this country, including many New York City schools. (There are some stellar exceptions out there, by the way. As more and more kids come to me, I am seeing examples of some fantastic teaching going on within the Balanced Literacy curriculum. Since Balanced Literacy does not have a systematic curriculum, whether or not your child gets a teacher who knows how to teach kids to read is all a matter of luck. Because there is no scripted curriculum with Balanced Literacy, in the end it is the teacher who decides what is taught in his or her classroom.)

But how to reach more parents?

If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.

So many of you email, instead of posting here, which is fine. But if you would post, everyone would get to see your comments and, perhaps, we could all help each other.

(Feb. 23, 2008) This little ditty came to me in the shower the other day. Sing it to the tune of “Mama, don’t let your children grow up to be cowboys”…

Mama, don’t let your child grow up to be labeled

Many teachers can’t teach and then they call your child learning disabled

For more information on that topic see, “The Right to Read: Birth of a Syndrome,” a book chapter that traces the history of how so many children came to be mislabeled “learning disabled” when the real fault lies with poor teaching methods. www.audiblox2000.com/book2.htm

Two of my favorite excerpts from “The RIght To Read”:

1.) “In 1974 Bateman recommended that the term `learning disabilities’ be replaced by the term teaching disabilities. The focus should be on the inadequacies of teachers’ skills and the teaching environment, instead of always blaming the student’s inadequacies. In 1987 Dr. Thomas Armstrong coined the word dysteachia to refer to the children suffering from `pedagogical illness’ or inappropriate teaching strategies. He wrote, `if we taught children to speak the way we teach them to read, we’d have a nation of stutterers.’ This is just another way of saying that our schools are selling millions of kids short by putting them into remedial groups or writing them off as underachievers, when in reality they are disabled only by poor teaching methods.”

2.) “`Treatment’ is seldom, if ever, directed at the environment. The possibility that there may be other problems relating to the home, school or other social conditions is ignored. The teacher may be fickle, brutal and stupid, but when a child fails or cannot adjust, only the child is tested and treated. Does this perhaps imply that every teacher, school, and the schooling system are perfect? Does this further imply that all teachers are equally capable?”

From firsthand experience, I can tell you that they are not. As soon as you realize your child has a lousy teacher (this includes hard working, lovely, caring teachers who have been poorly trained) make sure you take action immediately. Realize you will not be able to change the teacher or the system, at least not in time to help your own child. You must help your child yourself. Find someone capable to teach your child how to read, or teach your child yourself. You will literally be saving your child’s academic life.

(Feb. 1, 2007 continued) After telling the assistant principal that Younger Son will read much better if she covers up the pictures in the books, I reach into my purse and pull out a book called Little Bear, a collection of four Little Bear stories. I turn to the first story in the book, “What Will Little Bear Wear?” and say, “He read this last night. He read it beautifully.”

The look on the assistant principal’s face says she clearly does not believe me.

No way.

No how.

“He hadn’t read the story before?” she asks. (She is hinting that he may have memorized the story and recited it, as opposed to actually reading it.)

“No,” I say. “And I hadn’t read it to him either.”

“How is that possible?” she asks.

She is talking to me in the gentle, sympathic tone a doctor would use if the parent of a terminally ill child suddenly announced that the child was cured. The doctor would have thought that the poor, bereft parent was simply indulging in wishful thinking.

It is easy to see why the assistant principal feels this way. After all, when he was reading with her he couldn’t read a book that the school thinks is much easier than Little Bear. (The Whole Language book is actually much harder since it is full of all sorts of words and phonics patterns Younger Son hasn’t learned yet.)

“He could read it because he knows how to sound out most of the words in Little Bear and because he’s learned the sight words that are in it,” I say. “It surprised me too though. I thought he would have a lot more trouble with reading it than he did. It was late by the time he sat down to read. He was tired. And the book was brand new. But I swear he read it beautifully, except for the words `hooray’ and `put.’ He thought `put’ was but.” He had never seen the word “cold” before but he read it beautifully. He thought the word `something’ was `sometimes’ because `sometimes’ shows up a lot in the book he is reading in school. But he corrected himself and said, `something.’”

She takes the book from me and thumbs through it.

She sighs.

Clearly, she doesn’t know what to think. Am I a crazy mother indulging in wishful thinking, or can Younger Son read much better than the school thinks he can?

“Keep the book,” I say. “See for yourself. Have him read it to you. Have him read you any other Little Bear story. He can read them. You’ll see.”

She nods. “I’ll do that. And in the meantime, remember he is being evaluated. We will see what the evaluation turns up.”

Oh no, no, no!!! I think. Don’t turn into a disbeliever. Don’t go back to thinking there is something wrong with my son. Just when you were seeing what may really be the problem.

What can I do to get her to realize my son can read? Really, really read.

“Listen,” I say. “I am the one who came to you guys in the beginning of the year and told you my son couldn’t read. I have no reason to change my tune now unless he is really reading. Back in September, when you guys were saying nothing is wrong and not to worry, I was telling everyone that something was wrong. At the time I didn’t realize the problem was the curriculum. I was totally open to examining if my kid had a problem. I was thinking my kid might have dyslexia and every other —exia you can think of. And if he had those problems, I wanted to know all about them and I wanted to get him all the help I could. I’ve almost completed a doctorate in psychology. I am all for testing and evaluating kids and helping those who need help. But I can tell you, as an almost psychologist and as a mother, that my son is fine. The only problem he had was he wasn’t being taught how to read in school. When I taught him how to read, his `problem’ went away.”

The assistant principal nods sympathetically but doesn’t say a word.

“Look,” I say, reaching into my purse and pulling out three Dick and Jane books. “He can read these too.”

She leafs through Go Away Spot, a slim little book with six very short stories in it. “And why don’t the pictures in these stories interfere with his reading?“

“Because they aren’t directly linked to the text, the way they are in the Whole Language books you use. He can’t use the pictures to guess at the words so he has to really read.

“Look.” I point to a picture of spilled milk in the first story. “The words don’t say, `Here is spilled milk’ the way they would in a Whole Language book. The words say, `Oh, Jane. I see something. Look, Jane, look. Look here.’ Because he couldn’t guess words from the pictures, he actually looked at the words and he actually read them.”

The assistant principal nods. “Yes,” she says. “In the other books the text totally supports the picture.”

I think maybe she is back to believing my son is O.K.

But then she says, “How is his writing? Does he reverse his letters when he writes at home?”

I don’t know where she is going with this but I have a feeling it isn’t good. “No,” I say. “Well, sometimes. Sometimes he’ll write a `b’ for a `d’ or a `d’ for a `b’ but that’s normal for kids this age.”

“With me, he reversed his f and h.”

That stuns me. “Never,” I say. “Never at home. He writes beautifully. In fact, look at this. You will probably refer us to child services when you see this, but look at what he can write.”

I pull out the piece of paper on which he wrote, “Older Brother is an asshole.” I tell her the story behind those words and she laughs.

“He spelled those words right,” I say. “And he wrote the `h’ in the right direction.”

She takes the piece of paper from my hand and reads it.

“Actually, at first he left the `e’ off of `asshole,’” I say. “But he spelled every other word in that sentence correctly.”

“I was going to ask you if he spelled `hole’ right,” the assistant principal says in all seriousness.

I cannot believe I am sitting in an office at a Talented and Gifted school telling my son’s assistant principal that he can spell “asshole” almost perfectly. But, hey, I did whatever I could to get him to read and to start spelling correctly. Now I will do whatever I need to do to get his school to realize he can read and that he is on the road to great spelling too.

“And what does that say?” the assistant principal asks, pointing at a line at the bottom of the page that says, “I am srt.”

“That says, `I am smart.’”

She smiles, in a touched way. We are sitting here talking about a child who thinks he is smart, who knows he is smart. But what we are discussing is not his intelligence, or how well he learned to read once he was taught properly. Instead, we are discussing whether he has any learning issues.

If you ask my son (which I never did. Throughout this whole process my son never, ever, had any idea that his school thought there was something wrong with him) he would definitely tell you he has no problem learning.

Who will end up being right?

My child or his school?

(Feb. 12, 2008) The great news came last Friday. Older Son and his good buddy ripped open their letters on the corner in front of their school and jumped for joy when they read that they had both been accepted to the same top-notch Specialized High School.

I haven’t posted the news sooner because I know many smart, great kids who did not get happy news. I feel for them and out of respect for them and their hard work, decided to keep a low profile about Older Son’s accomplishment. But then I thought about it and decided I have bared Older Son’s academic trials and tribulations in this blog and owed it to him to come to a conclusion about those trials and tribulations.

We sure had a happy ending.

Although it took two years of middle school to overcome the lack of rigor in his elementary school, and for him to be able to function independently in school, thanks to all the hard work he was willing to put in, Older Son got into the high school he had his heart set on attending.

He is also working completely on his own in eighth grade. I never thought the day would come but I have no idea what he is studying in school and I love it.

He goes to school, comes home, does his homework, studies on his own, and gets great grades. He also plays hockey, hangs around with his friends, takes the dog to the dog run, listens to his I-Pod and (gasp!) watches TV every once in a while. Not during the week, granted, but at least he gets to watch some on the weekends.

Now that he knows how to study well and efficiently, he has time to have a life.

You’ve read about what it took to get him there but he got there. And once kids get there, there’s no going back. With him, my academic work is done.

I continue to work with Younger Son in a very low-key way, even though he has an absolutely fabulous teacher this year and is thriving in school. I work with Younger Son because I now know how many other parents are working with their kids at home. I now know I cannot leave everything to the school. Not in this day and age. Not if I want him to keep up with the curve, which keeps being raised higher and higher as more and more families stay in Manhattan.

I also work with many other elementary school kids, both in public and private school. Thank you to all the parents who have entrusted their kids to me and my staff for tutoring. What I needed to do with my kids out of frustration and desperation, has turned into an extraordinarily fulfilling business that allows me to put my degree in psychology and expertise in child development and academics to good use. I love finding the gaps the kids’ schools have left. I love filling those gaps, and watching the kids’ grades, self-esteem and good behavior soar.

What I have done for my kids, I am doing for yours too. Years down the road, when your kids apply first to middle school and then to the Specialized High Schools, you too will celebrate.

After our meeting with the teacher, Husband and I headed for the assistant principal’s office.

A miracle happened during that meeting: The assistant principal listened to what we had to say.

She really, really listened.

If you’ve ever tried to talk to an employee of the New York City Department of Education about a possible problem with a New York City public school you’ll know how amazing it is to have anyone listen to you.

Every other time I’ve tried to talk to a DOE employee (including District 2 Superintendent Daria Rigney) about the fact that the Balanced Literacy curriculum wasn’t working for lot of kids and that many of the kids it sems to be working for are actually being taught how to read at home, I’ve been brushed aside.

This time Husband and I are heard.

That is truly an amazing feeling.

For the first time, we feel leave a school meeting feeling that there is hope, feeling that maybe what we have said might make a difference not just for our child, but for all children in the school.

This is what we told the assistant principal that day…

(February 1, 2007) I started the meeting by telling her the whole story about what went wrong for my son when it came to learning how to read in school. (For more details see the post titled, “A summary of what went wrong for my son when it came to learning how to read.” It is six posts prior to this one.)

To her great credit, she listened without interjecting or getting defensive. She simply sat there and, sympathetically and politely, listened to everything I had to say.

Husband then said, “It’s very important for the school to know how proactive the other parents in this school have been about teaching their kids to read at home. You should make sure this year’s kindergarten parents know that. We didn’t know how much work was being done at home and we would have appreciated being made aware of it.”

I then said that I wasn’t bashing the Balanced Literacy curriculum. I told her that Older Son had learned how to read within that curriculum. I left out the fact that he never learned how to spell well since that’s a different issue and I already know enough about public schools to know that curriculum changes happen very slowly. By the time the schools finally realize Balanced Literacy is failing so many kids, my Younger Son will probably be in college. My goal in talking to the assistant principal this morning is not to get the school to change the curriculum. My goal is to help my son and to get the school to realize there is nothing wrong with him and that the problem is simply that he was never taught how to read in school.

I said, “But the Balanced Literacy curriculum was implemented differently in Older Son’s school. Older Son’s kindergarten teacher worked with the kids in small groups and taught them the sounds that the short vowels make. (As you already know if you’ve been following this blog, in Younger Son’s school the kindergartners were taught to ignore the vowels and to guess at what the word is from the picture instead.) “Learning the short vowel sounds had to make a difference for Older Son,” I say. “But, also, Older Son has a very different learning style from Younger Son.”

I tell the assistant principal about the research I have begun doing on learning styles, research that will soon turn into the subject of my dissertation. I tell her that Older Son is a holistic, or intuitive, learner while Younger Son appears to be an analytic learner. I tell her each of these learning styles has its strengths and weaknesses and that neither one is inherently better than the other.

Wholistic-intuitive learners process words as whole units. They do not need, or like, to learn phonics rules. They tend to infer these rules without ever consciously knowing them. (Their learning style helps them learn to read more easily but when they get older, they may have trouble in school because they tend to skip reading directions on tests and gloss over many details in textbooks.) Analytic learners, on the other hand, like—and need—to learn phonics rules in order to learn how to read. If they are not taught these rules, they will not learn how to read. This is a tragedy, not just because every child should have the right to learn how to read, but because analytic learners have the ability to do as well as, or better than, intuitive kids in later school years. (The Specialized High School exam, for example, is tailor-made for analytical learners.) Analytical learners have the potential to do better in school because they tend to read directions and are able to show their work in a step-by-step detailed manner. While the intuitive child will often intuit, or guess, his way to a wrong answer, the analytic child will analyze all the facts and be more likely to then come up with the right anwer.

The assistant principal has never heard of these learning styles before. She is interested in hearing about them and writes down their names in order to be able to look into them further.

Then she pulls out a looseleaf that is full of Younger Son’s running records. These are forms that reading specialists fill out to keep track of the number of words a child reads correctly in a story, as well as the number of mistakes the child makes. She says, “As you know, Younger Son has been working with me.”

I had thought that assistant principal had been teaching him how to read. Now, as I glance at the running records, I realize she has not been teaching. She has been evaluating his reading ability. She turns to the first running record and says, “He read this book, which is a beginning level book, and he scored 100 percent.”

This is good news.

She turns the page in the looseleaf and shows us the next running record.

“He read this book and also scored 100 percent.”

This is also good news.

She turns the page again.

“Then he read this book and scored …” (Because I did not write down what she said, I do not remember the exact score but, trust me, it was very, very low.) “He didn’t know words that he should have known. He didn’t know words that he had read correctly in the two previous books.”

Her kind and gentle voice sounds very worried. Her brows are furrowed. Without ever saying the words, she is clearly communicating that we should be very concerned about what she has just told us.

Having delivered the serious news, she goes on to give us the details. She pulls out a Ziploc bag full of Whole Language book. I cringe when I see them. “Those books hurt him more than help him,” I say.

Her kind face remains impassive. She pulls out a book called, “Here is a Bird.” This is the third book Younger Son read with her, the one in which he didn’t recognize words he had known in the previous two books.

The first page of the book has the words, “Here is an eye.”

The second page starts with the word “the.”

I say, “I can tell you exactly what he got right and wrong.”

She looks at me, waiting for me to continue.

I say, “He was able to read `here,’ `is” and `a.’ He did not know the word `eye’ since he has never seen it before.”

The assistant principal nods and turns the page. The first word of the sentence is “the.” She says, “He knew `the’ in the other two books but he didn’t know it in this one.” She look, and sounds, very, very concerned.

I say, “Did he say `here?’”

“He said, `he’ but then he corrected himself.”

“I can tell you exactly why he did that.”

“Why?” she says. She sounds as if she is expecting me to tell her about a memory disorder I knew Younger Son had but had forgotten to mention until now.

“Because he thought the book would have a pattern, like the rest of these books tend to. He thought all of the pages would begin with the words `here is a.’ That’s why he said `he.’ He started saying `here’ but then realized that the word wasn’t `here.’”

The assistant principle nods without comment. She shows us other mistakes he made, mistakes that clearly had to do with him guessing what the words were by looking at the pictures. “He was getting all these words wrong that he had known the day before,” she says, sounding very, very worried.

“Cover the pictures next time you read with him,” I say. “I’m sure he’ll get a lot more words right. When he reads these Whole Language books he falls back on using the strategies that he was taught in kindergarten. He memorizes a pattern and guesses from the pictures. He used to do that with other books too. When he read the Bob Books with me he would make all sorts of mistakes until, finally, I just covered up the pictures. Then he was able to read them with no problem.”

The assistant principal remains silent for a moment, pondering what we have just told her. She looks at the words my son misread and, to her great credit, seems to realize that what I am saying is, at least, possibile. “This is fascinating,” she says. “I was taught that children learn to read by looking at the pictures but what you are saying is fascinating and it makes sense, given what I’ve seen with Younger Son.”

My heart soars with joy. Someone at the DOE is finally realizing that maybe, just maybe, the problem may lie with the way reading is being taught at the school, and not with my son.

Imagine what a difference it would make in so many children’s lives if the schools finally realize the reason so many children are not learning how to read in school is because they are simply not being taught how to read. Imagine if the schools realized the problem lies with them and not with the children they are referring for evaluations and labeling learning disabled simply because they have not been taught how to read.

The first step of that wonderful journey seems to have happened right here. Right now. That is truly an amazing, wonderful feeling!

(Thursday, Feb.1, 2007) It is 8:10 a.m. Husband and I are sitting on the little chairs in Younger Son’s first grade classroom, meeting with his teacher. The room is neat and clean and the walls are covered with the children’s math and writing work. I used to always feel happy walking into my kids’ classrooms and seeing all their wonderful work displayed.

That was before my Younger Son fell so far behind the class curve.

Now I feel worried.

And suspicious…

It is a terrible feeling when you feel you cannot trust your child’s school.

It makes you feel on the offensive and on the defensive at the same time.

This does not feel good.

This is not what we signed up for when we, so joyfully, registered him for this talented and gifted school.

But this is what we have gotten and we must deal with it.

We must, somehow, figure out why things are going so terribly wrong for our son in this school…in this room…with this teacher…

At the start of the meeting, I remind Teacher that, last Friday, when she had talked about the fact that Younger Son had made progress, she had only talked about what the school was doing for him—giving him supplemental reading and speech services and having him evaluated. She had not mentioned how much progress Younger Son had made. “I wanted to make sure you realize Younger Son has made a lot of progress with his reading,” I say.

Teacher replies: “I meant that the school is doing a lot for him and that he’s made a lot of progress too. He’s become more confident in class and I can see him using his strategies when he reads. The other day I was having the kids talk about the strategies they use when they read and Younger Son told the class that the strategy he finds most effective when he reads is to look at the pictures to help him know what the words are.”

I almost died when I heard that.

I couldn’t believe that was the strategy he talked about—the very strategy that had interfered with his ability to learn to read.

Why in the world would he share that strategy with the class?

In kindergarten, his teacher had taught the class to “read” words by guessing what they are from the picture.

That is why he couldn’t read in kindergarten.

But now my son knows that guessing from the picture totally messes him up. He knows that he reads much better at home when I cover up the picture to keep him from guessing at the words.

So why would he tell his class that looking at the picture is an effective strategy?

Why not share with everyone how effective learning how to sound out words has been for him?

Is he simply spouting the party line in class?

Is he simply saying what he knows the teacher wants to hear?

There is no time to ask Teacher those questions now. We only have 20 minutes to talk to the teacher and I need to get to the bottom of why Younger Son is reading so much better at home than at school. As the first step towards finding that out, I ask Teacher how kids’ reading levels are ascertained.

Teacher pulls out a big looseleaf published by Rigby, one of the publishers of those ridiculous Whole Language books. The looseleaf contains copies of the little books the kids need to read in order to move on to the next level. She shows me the story Younger Son needed to read in order to move up to the next level. “He needed to score 95 or higher,” Teacher says. “He got an 85.”

So the ability to read one story determines whether or not a kid moves up to the next reading level? I ask

Yep, she says.

I look at the story. It is very easy. My kid can read that story with no problem.

Trust me, I know. I have been in the reading trenches with him.

Side by side.

Every night.

I know what my kid can, and cannot, do.

I tell the teacher, “Younger Son can read this.”

She shrugs. Obviously, my son hadn’t read it to her.

“The pictures are throwing him,” I say. “He’s guessing at what the words are from the pictures. Try covering up the pictures. I’m sure he’ll read the words beautifully.”

The teacher nods.

I get the feeling she’s just yessing me.

I get the feeling she has no plans to cover up the pictures in the future.

I ask to see the book Younger Son would need to read to graduate from the level two levels higher than the one he is currently at in school. He can definitely read that book too.

“Teacher, I’m telling you, Younger Son can read these books. Please try having him do it with the pictures covered.”

“Okay,” she says.

It never happens, by the way.

Never.

I tell the teacher that the Whole Language books are holding my son back from really reading.

I say, “He needs books in the classroom that support the phonics lessons he is getting with me and the school reading specialist.” (The school reading specialist also has no phonics-based books for the kids to read, by the way. This makes no sense. Why bother to teach kids phonics if you do not support those lessons with phonics-based readers they can use to practice those skills.)

I ask the teacher if I can send some phonics readers in for Younger Son to read during independent reading time. “Sure,” she says.

That never happens, either, by the way. Keep reading to find out why…

(Wed., Jan. 31, 2007) Last night, my son was able to read Little Bear. This ability places him at, or above, grade level in reading.

Yet his school has referred him for an evaluation because, in school, he is reading below grade level.

Why is he reading so well at home but so poorly in school?

This doesn’t make any sense.

What in the world is going on?

Somehow, I have to get to the bottom of this. My first step to doing so will be at the meetings Husband and I have scheduled with both the teacher and the assistant principal tomorrow…

(Tuesday, Jan 30, 2007) Today, my son put in a full day in school and then stayed for Extended Day, during which time he read with the assistant principal. He then took the school bus home, had dinner, did his homework, took a bath and then played a little bit. Then it was time for him to read out loud to me.

I had gone to Barnes & Noble earlier that day looking for books that he could read. So many of those Easy Reader books that claim to be for emergent, or beginning, readers are remarkably difficult. But I did find a Little Bear story (“What Will Little Bear Wear?”) that I thought he could make his way through. A lot of the words in the story were sight words that he had learned and I figured he could probably sound out many of the words he didn’t know. Since he’d never seen this story before, and had never had it read to him, I was prepared to help him out with any words he couldn’t read. I was sure there would be quite a few of them.

Imagine my surprise when, even though it was late and he was tired and the book was brand new, Younger Son read it beautifully. The only words he stumbled over were “hurray” and “put.” He thought “put” was “but.” He had never seen the word “cold” before but he read it beautifully. He read the word “something” as “sometimes.” (The book he is currently reading in class has the word “sometimes” repeated often in it.) On his own, he realized the word was not “something” and he corrected himself.

When he finished reading the story, I gave him a big hug and a kiss. “You are a reader, kiddo,” I said. “You did it!”

His smile and the glow on his face could have lit up the night.

I don’t know who was more surprised at how well he had read—me or my son—but I can tell you we were both absolutely thrilled.

I remember the moment I realized there was a terrible, horrible, problem with the way my son was being taught how to read in school. More accurately, I remember the moment I realized my son wasn’t being taught how to read in school. That moment occurred during open school week in November 2006 when I sat in on “Reading Workshop” in my son’s school. I had thought that I would witness a clasroom full of children being taught how to read. This is what I saw instead:

The teacher told the whole class that she had just finished reading a book at home. She said that, when she had finished, she sat back on her couch and thought, “Now, what was that book about?” She said she was going to retell the story of The Little Engine That Could, a book which she had recently read to the class. She then began retelling the story. She had to stop often to reprimand the kids who wanted to comment on what happened next or who were chiming in “I think I can, I think I can…”

“This is my turn. Not yours. You will have your turn,” she tells them. The kids were, clearly, engaged and the teacher was modeling for them what she expected them to do on their own. So far so good.

When the teacher was done retelling the story, she told the kids to go and work with their reading partners. They were instructed to read a story and then retell the story to each other. The kids broke up into pairs and most dived right into reading their books.

It looked like my son was going to do the same. He took out his Ziploc bag full of books and dumped them on the table. His reading partner looked at my son’s books and said, “Hey. You stole my book.”

My son looked at him, uncomprehendingly. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“That book,” Reading Partner said, pointing to a slim book called, Amazing Sea Creatures. “You stole it.”

“I did not,” said Younger Son.

“Yes you did,” said Reading Partner. “It’s mine. You stole my book.”

I really doubted my son stole his Reading Partner’s book. I had no idea what happened but if I had gotten involved and asked questions, I probably could have gotten to the bottom of it. Maybe there were a few copies of this book in the classroom. Maybe my son had put it in his book bag by accident. Maybe Reading Partner actually had his own copy in his bag. Unlike my son, he hadn’t dumped the entire contents of his book baggie out on the table and the book could still be in it.

I stayed out of their disagreement because I was here to witness what would be happening in the classroom if I was not here. I had come to observe because I wanted to see how my son was being taught to read. Now, I wanted to see how long the kids would bicker instead of read. Reading Partner’s mother and I had already talked about how we had the feeling our kids were not a good match as reading partners. “It’s like the blind leading the blind,” her husband had said when he heard they were partners.

The kids bickered and bickered until, finally, I couldn’t stand seeing them waste their reading time any longer. The teacher was across the room, working with two other kids and she appeared oblivious to the arguing and the lack of reading happening at my son’s table. I told the kids, “Guys, cut it out. You’re supposed to be reading. Stop arguing and pick a book to read.”

Both kids listened. My son picked up an easy little book while his reading partner picked up a book with no words in it.

Yes, you read that right. The book he chose to “read” is called One Frog Too Many and it does not have any words at all. The pictures depict the story of a boy who at first has a frog, a turtle and a dog and then gets another frog as a present. The first frog is jealous and does things to get rid of the second frog until, finally, there is a happy ending.

Reading Partner looked at me and said, “This book doesn’t have any words. Younger Son brought it home one time and you got so mad at him. He told me.”

“You’re right,” I said to Reading Partner.

“Don’t talk to him,” my son said. He is very angry because his Reading Partner accused him of stealing his book.

But I continue: “He did bring that book with no words home,” I say to Reading Partner, “and I did get mad at him. I told him not to ever bring that book home again. I told him to bring home books with words in them.” I don’t share with Reading Partner how ridiculous I think it is that kids in first grade who are learning to read are given books with no words.

Now, Reading Partner begins “reading” this book with no words in it. Because I care about this kid and because his mother and I have been supporting each other in our mission to teach our kids to read, I say, “How about reading a book with words?”

“No,” he says, without looking up from the pages.

He is very definite in his answer and, so, I leave him with his chosen book.

My son, in the meantime, is leafing through the pages of his book so quickly that, even though his book does have words in it, he couldn’t possibly be reading them. He’s just looking at the pictures too.

Both boys get to the end of their books in no time. When they do, Reading Partner looks at my son and, again, says, “You stole my book.”

My son has had enough. He marches across the room to where his teacher is sitting and says to her, “Can I have a new reading partner?”

She said, “I hear that there’s trouble over there.” She stands up and walks to my son’s reading table with him. “What’s wrong?” she says.

Reading Partner says, “Younger Son is being mean to me.”

The teacher looks at me and I shake my head no.

The teacher then says to Reading Partner, “What really happened?”

Reading Partner says, “Younger Son stole my book.” He points at Amazing Sea Creatures.

The teacher says, “That book was in the basket for book shopping and Younger Son took it this week. That’s his book this week.” (Once a week the kids “book shop,” which means they get to pick new books to put in their book baggies for the week.)

Reading Partner didn’t argue with her. The teacher then instructed the kids to, “Do your cards.” Because they are both behind the class curve in reading, Younger Son and Reading Partner are the only kids in the room who have been given a set of flashcards with sight words to practice. Usually the student teacher reviews these words with them. She is not in the classroom today so the kids are to review them on their own. No one will know if they are reviewing them correctly since no teacher is there to hear how they read each card.

Since there is no one to review the words with the kids, I offer to do them with each of them. My son accepts my offer while Reading Partner declines. Younger Son reads his flashcards to me, while Reading Partner silently flips through his on his own. I keep an eye on him to make sure he is reading his cards. He appears to be.

When both kids had finished reading their flash cards, Reading Partner looks at my son and says, “Tomorrow I have blocks and I’m going to knock down your block building.” (One of the activities the kids can choose to do during activity time is build with blocks. The teacher allows the structures they build to remain standing for a few days. My son takes great pride in his elaborate structures and his Reading Partner knows this. He is now out to get revenge on my son for a crime my son did not commit.)

My son does not answer him. Instead, he picks up a book and sits down on the floor to read it instead of at the table with Reading Partner. My son is trying to put as much distance as he can between himself and his reading partner. Again, Reading Partner says, “You stole my book.”

I am about to remind Reading Partner of what the teacher had said when the student teacher walks into the room. We make eye contact and I motion her over.

She walks over and tells Younger Son and Reading Partner to read their books. Neither one of them makes a move to do so. I tell her, “There’s a little conflict going on. Reading Partner feels bad because he thinks Younger Son stole his book but The Teacher said Younger Son picked it on book shopping day. So then Reading Partner said he would knock over Younger Son’s blocks tomorrow and Younger Son is upset about that. There are a lot of feelings flying around here.”

Student Teacher says, “Reading Partner! Apologize to Younger Son! How would you feel if someone did that to you?”

“Sorry,” Reading Partner says.

He doesn’t look sorry. He looks mad.

I sense that this is not going to be the end of the issue.

I am right. The relationship between these two boys will continue to deteriorate.

A few months later my son will announce that he does not want to be this boy’s friend anymore. He will refuse to attend his Reading Partner’s birthday party and will spend the rest of the school year trying to put distance between himself and this boy.

What I witnessed during Reading Workshop at my son’s school was not the making of a reader. Instead, I witnessed unstructured time during which two little boys who could not read were left to their own devices. It was not constructive, or productive, time for either one of them.

It was absolutely horrifying to witness.

Again, I have to stress that if your child is not learning to read in school do not assume the problem lies with your child. Instead, ask your child exactly what happens during reading time at school. When one of my friends asked her third grade daughter what she did during reading workshop in school, the child said, “I pretend to read.”

If you ask, your child will tell.

You too may be shocked at what you hear.

(Dec. 18, 2007) I feel a little bit like a scientist who starts a drug trial and then finds the drug he is testing is so successful that he has to stop his experiment midstream in order to make sure that all the people involved are able to be helped by the drug he is testing. Some of you have said you wish I would stop interjecting current posts and get on with telling my Younger Son’s story. You want to know if he was evaluated and what the outcome was.

My plan for this blog is, indeed, to tell my Younger Son’s story in chrononological order. But I couldn’t write yesterday’s post without interjecting at least some of my present knowledge of how important basic phonics are in the early stages of learning how to read. I couldn’t in all good conscience keep from parents what I now know. So, sorry if that post was a bit muddled. I hope, however, that it was helpful.

All teachers should be required to go back to school for a refresher course on how kids really learn to read. And universities have to stop turning out teachers who think Whole Language works. And the chancellor and mayor should hire educational advisors who know what they are talking about. Because, as it is with medical doctors, the credo of all teachers should be “first do no harm.” And, as the reading expert who conducted the Lindamood-Bell interview said, “millions and millions of lives…have suffered harm in the process of (teachers and universities) trying to learn to do this.”
For the Lindamood Bell interview click on http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/lindamoodbell.htm