Tag Archives: Cheer Leader
Do not listen to them
Parents, do not let anyone at your child’s school lower your expectations. If your child has a dream, ignore the naysayers – and support your child as she follows her dream, as this mother did.
In elementary school, Lisa was in special ed because of her severe dyslexia, dyscalculia, and ADD. She also had buck teeth (the kids called her “beaver”), so she was a walking target for bullying. Lisa had very few friends, and extremely low self-esteem. The bullying became so brutal that I switched her to a more caring private school for junior high.
At the transition to public high school IEP meeting, I was shocked by her low achievement test scores. The IEP team asked Lisa to come in and share what she wanted to achieve in high school. Lisa said, “I want to earn a regular high school diploma and be a cheerleader.”
The team members told Lisa that due to her low scores, she would NEVER earn a regular diploma (a modified diploma was the best she could expect), and they shared that no special ed student had ever become a cheerleader.
Lisa hated her special education English class. It took half a year and countless meetings, including one with the head of special ed for the district, to convince them to give Lisa a chance to be in a regular English class. They warned her that she would have to prove she could handle the material to remain in that class.
The next year and a half was a real struggle. Lisa put in extremely long hours of study and work. She even made up the first semester credit of that Freshman English class by going to night school at a local community college (a 2 hour commute) because the high school said it was not a “credit recovery” class.
Something amazing happened at the end of her sophomore year. Lisa was selected to be on cheer, and it changed her life forever.
She learned her cheers, learned to do the stunts, learned that people could like her, and started to believe in herself – all while maintaining a high enough GPA to stay on cheer.
In her junior year, Lisa became her own advocate at her IEP meetings. She insisted she had what it takes to earn a regular diploma. The IEP team did not believe her, but agreed she could try.
Fast forward to this year – her senior year. Lisa is doing extremely well. She has a 3.6 grade point average. She has just passed all 3 of the required graduation tests, so she will get a regular diploma.
Yesterday, we had her final IEP meeting. Not one of the people who had originally told her she could not be on cheer, or get a regular diploma, showed up to congratulate her. I realize they are busy people, but I so much wanted to tell them NOT to give up on students – and to give them a chance to follow their dreams.
Lisa is proof that through hard work and dedication, dreams really can come true.
Is this dyslexia?
A parent recently sent me this email:
My daughter, Karen, is 8 years old and in third grade. She is full of life and so much fun. She makes friends easily and enjoys having a good time. But she is struggling in school.
She started struggling in Kindergarten. She had a tough time staying in her seat and was always in trouble for pestering others during nap time. She struggled with sight words and reading, and she missed the DIBELS benchmarks. But her teacher said Karen just needed to mature a little more and that she would be fine.
But in first grade, Karen was way behind in reading. She has always been a “social butterfly,” and she still had a hard time staying in her seat. So her teacher allowed her to get up move around a bit and then go back to work. That seemed to help.
Spelling tests were very tough for Karen. Reading comprehension tests were also tough because she couldn’t always read the questions. However, she could orally tell you all about the book. Her handwriting was poor, but legible.
In January, her first grade teacher suggested retention. But by the end of first grade, the teacher claimed Karen had caught up in reading. Karen was just a little immature, but she would grow out of it.
In second grade, Karen was about a semester behind in reading, and she sometimes swapped b’s for d’s. Her handwriting was (and still is) really hard to read at times. She did okay in math. But she often failed the spelling tests – even though we practiced every night and tried all sorts of things when practicing those spelling words.
This year, her third grade teacher knows all the “tricks.” Spelling tests are multiple choice. Karen has to circle the one that looks right, and she gets 95% or higher on that type of spelling test. But she cannot spell any of those words the following week.
Vocabulary tests are given with a word bank, so most weeks, Karen scores 85% or higher.
In math, she is allowed to use scratch paper and her fingers because she still has not memorized her adding and subtracting facts. Now they are starting multiplication. Yikes. Her class recently started to learn to tell time. Karen is struggling in that as well.
The school says Karen is at the 2.5 grade level in reading – but she should be at 3.4. Karen is doing better with being attentive in class, except during reading time. She loves to be read to, but she gets frustrated when she tries to read.
Her teacher doesn’t seem alarmed, but I have this feeling that something isn’t quite right.
Karen started cheering this year. She struggles to memorize the words and motions of the cheers. She often goes left when the group goes right, lifts her left hand when the group raises their right, etc.
She has a hard time memorizing Bible scriptures in her Bible classes. Scriptures that she memorized a week ago, she can no longer recite.
Do you think she might have dyslexia?
Bright Solutions for Dyslexia 