from the mom
An hour ago I dropped Ben off for his first day of preschool at Lakes Elementary. This is a big day in his life. And probably a bigger day in mine and his dad's.
It is an interesting thing for two homeschooled parents to send their 3-yr old to school. It definitely wasn't in "the plan." I am not a big proponent of preschool, and it took a lot of prayer to get us here.
It was more than 6 months ago when I started to realize there was something wrong with Ben's speech (or lack thereof). I started reading about speech disorders and we had him assessed by a speech pathologist at the children's hospital in Tacoma. She confirmed our suspicions. Ben was severely delayed in auditory comprehension and verbal expression. She recommended that we take advantage of the special needs preschool in our district that works with communication disorders.
Since then we have had him screened at the school district and then had a more indepth evaluation at our local school. We have also started working with him on flash cards and just making an effort to verbally identify everything we encounter with Ben. He has shown great improvement. But he is still difficult to understand and far behind his peers.
And so, we decided to go the preschool route. He will work with a speech pathologist at the school for 30 minutes a week as part of the preschool program. We met with her yesterday and established goals for Ben. He will have only 7 weeks of school before the year is over and we plan on private therapy for the summer.
Ben was thrilled to go to school this morning. He calls his teacher "Byerly"--hasn't quite got the "Mrs." down yet. This morning he rattled off "toys" "kids" "school" as we were getting out the door. When we arrived he said, "Play outside." When I took him in the classroom, he was off to play with all the things he didn't have time enough to do yesterday. My "Goodbye Ben, I'll see you before lunch" was met with "bye" and not even a look back.
He is starting his preschool experience with a big bruise/lump on his forehead from a fall he took Sunday that I didn't think was bad enough to form a lump at the time. I wished I'd iced it. He also was so excited last night that he didn't sleep much. When I came to nurse Kyrie at 2-ish, he was awake. We heard him counting on the baby monitor around 5am and then again around 6:30. He is obsessed with counting and counts everything he sees. He also proudly took me into the kitchen Sunday night to tell me the alphabet as he pointed out the letters. He is largely self-taught and we are hopeful that preschool will make sure he covers some of the areas he isn't so interested in: art, shapes, colors, etc....
I sent Ben off this morning with a lot of prayer and a belief that his day will be full of new adventures and he will bring joy to those he meets today.
4 comments:
We've been praying for Ben already on this, and we'll continue to do so. Please keep us updated. (Pictures are good too! :))
--DJ
Hurray for firsts! Can't wait to hear how it went!
praises for a sovereign God. I'll be praying for you all and Ben.
I'm sorry Ben is dealing with speech issues. I had them when I was a little girl, and I also went to a public school weekly for therepy for several years. I think I actually started when I was 2 or 3.
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