Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Older Child Adoption v Academics

I've had a few people ask so I thought I'd give you a little lookie-loo into what that looks like for us.

Joey:
Home 18 months.
English ability pre-adoption consisted of,
"Hello. How are you? I am fine. Thank You."
And thassit.
Joey, do you want a cookie?
"How are you?"
Joey, are you ready for bed?
"Hello." 
Joey, do you want to go outside?
"Thank you. Hello. I am fine. Thank you."
Yep.
But now this:

He began reading simple sight words about 2 weeks after he started school last year and is now reading somewhat fluently.

Jacob:
Home 18 months.
First day of 2nd grade a month after we got home the teacher stops me after school and says that she was watching Jacob do his math and thought he was struggling when all of a sudden he just starts writing down the answers to double digit addition and subtraction without showing his work.
Homeboy was doing all the math
in
his
head.
He also already had his times tables memorized through 12. 

Alrighty then.

Joshua:
Home 11 months.
Pre-Adoption English ability: Non-existent.



And then of course there are the children that emerged from me.
They beee reeely smart 2.



While researching older child adoption the "experts" will tell you to place them in the grade appropriate level for their age.
Even if they don't know a lick of English you put them where they belong based solely on age(unless there are some systemic learning disabilities in which case you make concessions for that).
To which I thought they were crazy...
but ummm....they are totally correct.
These kids really do catch up and they do it quickly at that.

I've gotta go now and sign 8.2 million papers....
and practice my multiplication tables.
Peace.

Monday, September 3, 2012

The Myth I've Been Living

My monthly post is up on NHBO today.

It's something that has been burning in my heart for awhile now so I finally took a deep breath late last week one night after everyone was in bed and spilled it all right on out through many tears and a little bit of snot from boo-hooing all over my keyboard.

You can read it right here. 

I'm anxious to hear your feedback and in the meantime I'll be unloading the RV which currently smells like a combination of bacon and dirty socks.

All signs of a pretty great weekend.