We had our meeting to update the IEP yesterday and things are continuing to go well. The student teacher leaves at the end of this week so DD will be working with the actual special ed teacher starting next week. They are changing the timing of her pull out and will be working on sight words. I assume this is progress. The classroom teacher said that she was able to confirm some of my reports about testing inaccuracies (one time she assessed 1/5 and 3/5 vowel sounds but another time tested at 5/5 for both long and short vowels) but the special ed teacher seemed a bit surprised - she hasn't seen that sort of inconsistency. She did report that DD had read "fluently" for her one time, though. I think bit by bit they will get to an accurate read on her. If not she'll keep getting lots of extra attention...

They are now adding pull out time for math as well. This surprised us because on her testing she was "high average" - just shy of "superior". She has always "missed" the numbers 13 and 15 when counting so I think it is probably a good idea.

They brought in the school OT and asked her to work with DD - this was a big relief because we tried all last year to get OT in school and kept hitting a brick wall. It's interesting that this request was what led to the whole eval, 2E discovery, complicated IEP, etc and now we are finally getting that component added in. They are also going to have her evaluated by a speech pathologist. I had been told her speech was difficult to understand because she was using such advanced vocabulary - developmentally she was not necessarily ready for such complex words. We discussed that she always dropped her first consonant sounds when learning new words so it made sense to me that she tested as having trouble with initial word sounds. Maybe this is somehow a piece of the puzzle too.

All agree that she is happy as can be at school - no problems with anxiety. The school social worker is meeting with her once a week to help with coping strategies for when things arise. All good.

All these added components are why we had trouble deciding between public and private over the summer. I guess they confirm that we made the right decision - I'm not sure how it all would have been addressed if we had gone to the private school. Probably lots of extra expenses for the services.

I realize that I will have to keep pushing for enrichment to meet her comprehension needs. They don't have a formal mechanism for it in 1st grade so it is up to the classroom teacher. She is more than willing to provide differentiated instruction but I'm not sure she gets the extent to which it is needed. I made clear that I am going to insist on it so hopefully it will work as we move forward.

I thanked everyone profusely for having created a situation that is "better than best case scenario" and they said that it was my providing such detailed information for them that allowed them to make the transition so successful. I guess that is part of the message to share here - don't be shy when advocating for your child. Tell them what they need to know - use examples and make specific requests. A lot depends on your school and it's policies - I did not have a lot of luck last year at the big city magnet but I also learned from that experience to be insistent. It seems to be working at the local public - at least so far. Will keep you posted.

Thanks so much to everyone for their thoughtful advice as we were trying to figure this all out. I can't tell you how much you helped!