Third grade is considered a crucial reading year. Children who can't read well by the end of this year are more likely to become dropouts. All sorts of bad things are possible, the research shows.
I know our situation is extreme. But I also know testing suggests we aren’t alone. The pandemic was tough for these youngest of kids.
Still, there were signs. He was picking up letters a little slower than his classmates in kindergarten, and he was so, so wiggly. But we didn’t leave for an hour and a half. We were scared, and I watched YouTube videos of puppies on my phone while Thomas lay beside me, unconscious, until the pediatrician’s office called back. A nurse, then a doctor instructed us that this was urgent, that we needed to go.
We were shaken. My parents drove to our house, stood in our yard and said they were sorry. But it was early in the pandemic and we didn’t even hug, too fearful we would expose each other to the virus. “We’ll work on sight words,” she told me. I responded with: “Mom, I don’t think he knows his letters.” She was dubious.
More testing added dyslexia and ADHD diagnoses. The doctors said we should request special education services and armed me with a pile of test results and letters. The special education team initially decided he wasn’t low enough to qualify for services. But when he continued to struggle so much that one teacher mentioned having him repeat first grade, we asked them to take another look.
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