I think it is wonderful that you are trying to make a difference in her life, and I think that any love you throw her way will make a huge difference in her confidence and in her academics!

It sounds to me primarily as if she is just needing some individual attention. If she has trouble following along with something at school, I think it will make a world of difference to have you to help her with it until she does understand. I would bet that a great many of the kids who do well in school do so because they have someone at home that they can ask for help. It's tough to be on your own, essentially, when you are just 10 years old.

To me, it doesn't sound like she has any particular LD. If she is still having eye issues, she should still work on some of the therapy exercises she was given. Some questions to ask her would be if the letters or words move around on the page when she reads or if she has difficulty copying from the board to her paper. If she finished vision therapy she may know of some of the exercises they gave her, or you could contact her vision therapist for some things she can do at home. I'm sure they would be willing to help you out since they really encourage you to continue with the exercises after therapy is complete.

I personally wouldn't be overly concerned at this point about her mixing up her upper and lowercase b's and d's. Since she notices them, just have her go back over her work when she is done and make the corrections. At this point I would emphasize the process of getting her thoughts down on paper with as much detail as possible. You want her to feel good about writing so that she will be willing to share her thoughts. She can fix the details at the end.

As far as reading too fast and making mistakes, I would bet that she's trying to keep up with her classmates. To me, this means that she does want to do well, which is such an important thing. At home, I would maybe go back toward the basics and have her read aloud to you, maybe even using her finger to point for a time. Tell her that speed is not important (say, maybe, that you're going to read for 20 minutes exactly, no matter how far along that means she gets) and that you want her to focus on reading each and every word correctly. After a time with your attention, I would bet, she will improve her speed and accuracy. Clearly, from what you say, comprehension isn't much of an issue. Still, after she's done reading, I'd enrich the experience by having conversations with her about what she's read.

I volunteer at my kids' school and last year one of the things I did was to help kids who were falling behind. Some of the kids understood the material but just hadn't done their homework, and some really had no clue what they were doing. But truly, the thing that I think made the biggest difference for these kids was having an adult who spent one-on-one time with them. They really craved it. Seriously, how great is it just to have one person who wants to help you and talk with you and spend time with you?!

You are doing a great thing! It may get hard at times, but you can do it. Good luck!


She thought she could, so she did.