Happy Endings,New Beginnings: James' story

It's graduation week this week at Bridgeway, and we'll be sending nine Grade 12 students off with diplomas in hand, ready to face the future. Our grads have plans to attend college or university, to work or to travel. But I think the most important thing they'll leave with is confidence. They know what their learning disabilities are, and how they need to learn. They know how to be advocates for themselves, and with that, they know they can do anything. Amazing really, when you consider there was probably a time they weren't so sure.

I think James' story is a perfect illustration of how teaching to a child with learning disabilities in the way they learn can turn a life around. Thank you to mom Heather for writing this for us.

Rhonda


James' Story

Our son James started school at age 5 like most kids. By the beginning of the next school year, the school asked to put him back in Grade Primary, suggesting he might be developmentally delayed and need another year to mature.

By the end of Grade 1 - after 3 years of school - he could barely read a simple book with a few words on a page. When I brought this to the school's attention I was told children all learn at different speeds. In Grade 2 his teacher agreed with me that he might have ADHD after watching him fidget all day in class and become increasingly frustrated with school.

He was assessed by the school's psychologist late that school year who advised he was behind grade level (don't forget he was already behind one school year) and suggested certain plans for Grade 3 which never materialized. We found a local tutor who tried to teach him to read by teaching him the phonetics or sound each letter makes. That helped a bit, but not like it should have.

Homework was an exercise in frustration; many days it was just not worth the fight and was not completed.

His Grade 4 teacher was a saint and worked with him as best she could, but by mid-Grade 6 he was so frustrated, humiliated and bullied that we took him out of school fearing a mental break down. Eventually, we found another public school nearby where he completed Grade 6 with teachers and students who did not know him and all seemed to have improved.

Junior High was another nightmare for James. We paid for an independent psycho-educational assessment, which to no-one's surprise James was diagnosed with severe learning disabilities in written language and mathematics. Public school teachers with classes of 30+ students do not have the time to work with kids with SLDs, so he was assigned to the Resource department which had one part-time person for the whole school. When the principal that year applied for SLD tutoring assistance for him for Grade 8, he was turned down - "too many applicants" they said.

I had been in contact with Lucinda Low of Bridgeway Academy during his Grade 7 year and attempted to communicate with the Department of Education to see if this school was a possibility for James. Luckily for James, after we spent the fall of Grade 8 trying to get approved for Tuition Support funding for Bridgeway Academy, we received a call in early January that he was approved and off he went to Bridgeway Academy. Well, the rest is history.

James completed Grade 8 that year and then begged the school to put him up to his "Grade level" which they did with all his marks in the 80s and 90s. I am proud to say he is graduating this year from Grade 12 with an average of 84%, and has already been accepted into St Mary's University with an offer of an entrance scholarship.

What a relief it is to parents to know there is a place where their child can have success. "Teaching children the way they learn" - a novel idea, and it works!

Heather